


How to Find Your Dragon

by frogy



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dragons, Gen, Teen Wolf Reverse Bang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-11
Updated: 2013-01-11
Packaged: 2017-11-25 02:51:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/634340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frogy/pseuds/frogy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is definitely not sulking. He is definitely not sulking, because when his dad sat him down the day before he was scheduled to start dragon training and told him, "Don't to be upset if you didn't find your dragon this year," Stiles promised he wouldn't be. There was a lot of, "It doesn't matter how many times you've re-read the Guide to Dragons book, sometimes there's just not the right dragon for you among the previous spring's hatchlings." Psh. Obviously Stiles was listening. But there was no way Stiles wasn't getting a dragon this year. Stiles has been waiting for as long as he can remember to get a dragon and there is no way he's waiting a whole 'nother year.</p><p>A How to Train Your Dragon AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Find Your Dragon

**Author's Note:**

> This story is for the Teen Wolf Reverse Band, and I have to thank TGDA for the most amazing art in the entire world that was the impetus for this fic. I will like to it as soon as it's live, because it's amazing. 
> 
> And thank you queenitsy for the beta. Any remaining mistakes (and the stupid title, because titles are hard, yo) are my fault.
> 
> I hope you enjoy reading this, because I had a blast writing it.

Stiles is definitely not sulking. He is definitely not sulking, because when his dad sat him down the day before he was scheduled to start dragon training and told him, "Don't to be upset if you didn't find your dragon this year," Stiles promised he wouldn't be. There was a lot of, "It doesn't matter how many times you've re-read the Guide to Dragons book, sometimes there's just not the right dragon for you among the previous spring's hatchlings." His dad even pulled out the big guns for the conversation, the, "If I had gotten my dragon the first year, I never would have gotten to know your mother in the next year's dragon class." And of course, "They're not going to be like your book Stiles, they're young and they don't know their own strength and you can hurt them as much as they can hurt you, you have to be careful," and, "Seriously Stiles, are you listening to me? You _have to be careful_." Psh. Obviously Stiles was listening. But there was no way Stiles wasn't getting a dragon this year. Stiles has been waiting for as long as he can remember to get a dragon and there is no way he's waiting a whole 'nother year.

Stiles is also definitely, 100% not lost. He knows that he is in the forest. Somewhere to the east is home. And he knows that to the west, mountains rise up to the sky. He can't see said mountains, because it's dark out. As far as his dad knows, Stiles definitely did not sneak out at night to wander the woods alone, and it's going to stay that way, as soon as Stiles figures out where, in the grand scheme of 'not lost,' he is exactly.

And there is definitely not something following him. If he did think something was following him, he'd be wrong, because whatever is not there has to be his over-imagination at work.

Stiles is so sure that nothing's following him that he says it out loud. "There is nothing following me." He spins around, torchlight flickering into the trees, shadows moving ominously just out of view. "Nothing is following me, because I have fire and I am not afraid to use it," he shouts at nothing. "I don't have a knife, because of, well, we're not talking about that, but I have fire and I will totally burn you up into a crisp if you're following me. And I'm totally not lost," Stiles says, pausing before definitively taking the fork to the right on the path he's on. "I know how to get home. Things just look different in the dark."

Things look scary in the dark, and Stiles pulls his pelt-coat tighter around his shoulders. This wouldn't be an issue if he had a dragon already, with the stables opened late tonight so they could get extra bonding time in. But no. Stiles totally thought that Scott was going to be his dragon. They got along immediately, like no other dragon-human pair seemed to. Then Allison walked Lydia to dragon class and Scott rolled belly up the for her. Allison hadn't even been in the class. She's their age, but her dad didn't want her working with dragons yet. But Finstock took one look at how Scott reacted to Allison and said he couldn't let her not join in when Scott was so clearly her dragon. And that was the end of Stiles' hope of being paired with the Deadly Nader, leaving Stiles stuck trying not to become Jackson's char-broiled dinner. 

Stiles thought it was totally unfair that he had to work with Jackson at all when it was clear that Jackson was going to be Lydia's dragon. On the plus side, it got Lydia to talk to him, even if she only deigned to talk to him to yell at him for getting in the way of Jackson's fiery sneezes. Because of course all it would take to get Lydia to notice him would be to be the most ornery, true-to-name Monstrous Nightmare hatchling ever -- and holy shit, Stiles is totally being followed. 

Stiles looks up at a dark shadow that's already passing overhead, and he spins around to see what, where, and falls backwards over his own feet, breath gone in a whoosh and jolt, heart racing and oh my god. The action's done before Stiles can get his bearing, breath still wheezing as the dark shape resolves itself into a wild Nightfury tearing apart a mountain lion. 

"Holy shit," Stiles says in a hysterical laugh. "You just saved my life." The Nightfury ignores him. It takes very little for the Nightfury to rip the flesh off the mountain lion. It's just kind of sitting there having a snack while Stiles watches, trying to get his pounding heart back under control.

When he can more or less breathe okay, Stiles puts his hands on the ground and pushes up to his knees. He knows better, but he holds a hand out toward the Nightfury anyway. Stiles doesn't remember seeing one outside of a book. His town had a brood, but the barn housing them burned down almost before Stiles can remember. This is too amazing to pass up.

The Nightfury snarls at him. And Stiles drops back to his butt. "Okay, not touching the wild Nightfury," he says placatingly. It's still looking at him. "You're having a snack. I'm not going to get between you and the mountain lion carcass. In fact, I'm just going to go home now," and he moves to get up. The Nightfury growls at him again. "Or, I'll just stay right here." The Nightfury tilts its head. "Right here," Stiles says, settling down cross-legged. "I'm going to sit here while you eat that mountain lion, and not me, because I'm sure I taste terrible and it would be a mighty big waste for you to go through all that trouble of saving me from the mountain lion only to eat me." 

Stiles must be doing what the Nightfury wants of him, because it goes back to eating in the middle of Stiles' ramble, tilting its head to rip more flesh off the carcass in a frankly terrifying display, and, "Oh my god." The Nightfury has a tell-tale green tag on its ear that means it was born in captivity. "Where did you come from?" Stiles asks, sticking his hand out again. The Nightfury bares its teeth at him again and Stiles drops his hand and head dejectedly. "And I guess I just won't find out the answer to that question," Stiles says. 

When Stiles looks up, the Nightfury's already gone back to eating. "Stupid woods." At this time of night, everything's stupid, how cold it is even bundled in his coat, the dark and how it has him turned around, the dragon that's effectively trapped him here. "Stupid dragon. You should be nicer, you know," he tells the Nightfury. "You've seen people before. At some point you let people get close to you." Stiles nods at its tag. "And I was sulking. So, you should be even doubly nice to me because I need the cheering up."

"Too bad you can't talk. I could use some advice on how to get dragons to like me. And hey, you're a dragon, so you're the ideal person to give me advice, none of this 'you'll just have to wait, Stiles,' that my dad's giving me." Stiles is a champion talker. It drives his dad, and pretty much everyone else, nuts, but it doesn't seem to bother the Nightfury who is happily chomping away, ignoring Stiles entirely. "I bet you know how to get out of here, too. Once again dragons are better than people in every way possible. Except dragons and people seem to hate me both equally."

Stiles is still prattling on when the Nightfury gets up and leaps over Stiles, scaring the breath out of him, and disappears into the woods. "Well, that's just great," Stiles says, standing up.

Before he can decide which direction to head off in, the Nighfury is back, its enormous blue eyes glowing in the dark of the woods.

"What?" Stiles says. If only it could just answer him and this night could be over.

The Nightfury turns around, pauses, and then turns back to Stiles.

"I have no idea what you are doing," he tells it.

The Nightfury does its turn-around again, takes a few steps into the woods, and turns back at Stiles. Stiles takes a very, very tentative step towards the dragon. The Nightfury takes a step backwards, but keeps its teeth closed in its mouth for the first time that Stiles has moved towards it. Stiles takes another step forward. The Nightfury steps back.

"Do you want me to follow you?" Stiles asks, taking a couple of steps forward. The Nightfury takes a few leaps down the path before pausing, looking back over its wing at Stiles.

"I'll take that as a 'yes,'" Stiles says hurrying to keep up with the Nightfury. 

This is clearly a slow pace for the dragon, who's bounding ahead. Stiles scrambles not to lose sight of it. Even then, more often than not the Nightfury is flicking its tail impatiently waiting for Stiles when he gets close enough for the Nightfury to be illuminated in the circle of his torch's firelight. 

"If this is slow for you, I'd love to see you really open up," Stiles says, panting as he catches up once again. When the Nightfury doesn't start walking away this time, Stiles looks aground, confused. "Don't tell me you're lost too," he says to the dragon. Stiles gets the sense that even if the Nightfury could talk, it wouldn't dignify that with an answer. Instead, the Nightfury just shakes out its wings, and nods it's head in the direction behind Stiles. Stiles turns to look in that direction, squinting past the trees into the darkness, which, now that he looks at it, isn't quite as dark as the rest of the darkness. "That's the village," he says, shocked. It's one thing to tell yourself that a mystery dragon is leading you home, and it's entirely different to have that actually happen. Stiles tells himself all sorts of things that never come true. "Thanks," he says to the dragon. He's not expecting an answer, obviously, but it's still startling when the Nightfury jumps up, flap of it's wings making Stile's torch flicker in a gust of wind, before soaring away.

Nothing to do now but go home.

\---

Stiles can barely keep his head up the next day. He was lost for longer than he realized, and it seemed like the roosters were crowing as soon as he put his head down. He's not sure how he got through the morning. Now, he's at his usual lunch table with Allison, Lydia, and Danny, hiding behind a book in the hopes of napping through lunch enough to make it through the afternoon.

But he gets no such luck, as Allison asks, "Where were you last night?"

"Huh?" He was already working up to a nice nap, and he's really not up for making conversation. Although now that he thinks about it, he should have told Allison he wasn't going last night. 

"I thought for sure you'd be at dragon practice."

He didn't mean to worry her. When they were little, Allison's aunt disappeared one winter, presumed dead from the elements. That would be bad enough for one person, but earlier this summer her grandfather, who wasn't all right in the head, went out for a walk and never came back. So for as tough as she seems, she doesn't like it when people aren't where they should be.

"I don't have a dragon yet," Stiles says. "Finstock said it was only practice for people who had their dragons already." His mind flashes to the Nightfury from last night. He wants a dragon so bad that he probably should have shown up. But he can't bring himself to regret last night's adventure. It's probably the coolest thing that will ever happen to him, even if he can never tell anyone.

"We were all there," Allison says. "Even Danny."

"You went?" Stiles asks Danny in over-exaggerated, put upon hurt. "Without me? How could you?"

"Some of us are serious about getting our dragons," Danny says. Danny is entirely too serious about everything as far as Stiles can tell.

"How did it go?" Stiles asks the table.

"Jackson didn't try to flame-broil me," Lydia says derisively. "Just more proof that I'm amazing."

"Good," Danny shrugs, giving Stiles the answer he was looking for.

"It was fine," Allison says.

"Until your dad showed up," Lydia says. "And then he yelled at you and ended practice early and ruined everything. What's his deal, anyway?"

"He was just worried," Allison says, defending her dad. 

"Why?" Lydia asks.

"Dragons can be dangerous," Allison says. "He just wants to make sure I'm okay."

"It was creepy when he just showed up in the stables like that," Lydia says. "We were fine."

"Lydia's right," Danny says.

"Dragon's aren't dangerous," Stiles cuts in.

"We've only had them in the village for two generations. Before that, everyone thought they were monsters. They kill people," Alison says.

"I know my history, too," Stiles says. "They only kill when threatened."

"It was definitely weird when your dad showed up," Danny finishes, cutting off their argument at the head.

Allison looks at Stiles as the last hope at their table to agree with her.

"Don't look at me, I wasn't there." Stiles holds his hands out defensively. 

\----

Stiles was totally going to go to sleep early tonight to make up for last night. But training ended early because of something the adults in town were being squirrelly about. Stiles takes the opportunity to ignore all non-essential work (ie- all of it) and falls asleep to the warm sunlight streaming into his room. 

Stiles is disoriented when he wakes up, overly warm in all of his clothes under the heavy blankets on his bed. It's dark outside, and he can't figure out why he's up. He rubs the sleep from his eyes and here's the indistinguishable rumble of many voices in the main room.

He opens the door slowly, and slips out silently. He's not sure why, but he sticks to the shadows as he pads down the hall. Only he and his dad live here, and they rarely have guests. When he reaches the doorway, he peeks around and sees a small gathering of elders in the firelight. He's about to step in and say 'hello' when he hears what they're talking about.

Stiles pulls back into the shadows, out of sight of the entryway, when Finstock says, "There's something out there injuring dragons, we can't just ignore it. I don't care what Harris says."

"Harris has a point," Melissa, the head healer of the village, says. "We can't waste any more resources on something that's not a direct threat to us."

"Not a direct threat _yet_ ," Finstocks says, getting in her face. "But anything that's not afraid of wild dragons is going to have no problem making a snack of the ones we have in the stable come winter, and then we're left with _nothing_. Then it will be a _big_ problem."

"Hey," Stiles's dad says, putting a hand on Finstock's shoulder to ease him back, "calm down. We're not going to get anywhere by fighting with each other." It's only the newest members of the council of elders in there, Stiles's dad, Allison's dad, Finstock, and Melissa. There's been a lot of turn over recently; one death, two retirements, and of course Gerard, Allison's grandfather's disappearance. Stiles knows his dad takes the responsibility very seriously and something killing dragons in their woods is a big deal. He wonders why they're not having a full council meeting about it. 

"And we're sure it's not just the dragons fighting with each other?" Chris, Allison's dad, asks. "They're wild animals, they can be vicious." It's no surprise he doesn't want to be bothered. He probably hopes the dragons are all killed off by whatever it is. The Argents have always been wary of dragons. When Gerard was young, before there were dragon's in town, his brother, Peter, was killed by a dragon. Stiles didn't think it was that extreme; you couldn't decry dragons and still lead the town. But Gerard must have been keeping his real feelings under-wraps all that time, because in the last few years the old resentment instead of continuing to get older and further in the past became a louder and more adamant vocal hatred. 

"Not like this they won't be," Finstock says. "They always go for a clean kill when they're hunting. And dragons never attack other dragons like this."

"You spend so much time with them up in those stables you've started going crazy. They're animals, or have you forgotten? Dragons have killed people before, and maybe we should just let them wipe each other out," Chris confirms Stiles suspicions.

"And I told you it's not the dragons doing this," Finstock shouts. Stiles can see the shadows of him throwing his hands up in exasperation.

"Guys, be quiet," Stiles's dad hisses. "Stiles is asleep in the other room and I don't want him waking up." Stiles spares a moment of thought to feel guilty for eavesdropping, but just a moment. This is serious. "Finstock, I don't like it either," he continues, "but Melissa has a point. Winters is fast approaching. The days are getting shorter and we need everyone we can to get prepared. We can send out smaller teams if we can spare them, but we can't full-scale stop preparations. And we should bring this to the full council."

"We can handle it," Chris says. "There's no need to panic the whole town."

"You can't have it both ways," Finstock says to Chris. "Either there's a rogue dragon out there that's a threat, or there's nothing to worry about. It can't be both."

"If there's something we can do to protect the people of the town, we need to do it," Melissa says.

"You know we're the future," Chris says. "The elders left on the council," and he pauses uncomfortably, before continuing, "they're too soft from all that peace. The town needs us to take care of it."

"Let's go out tomorrow, do some recon, and see what we find," Stiles's dad says. "We can always tell them later, but we won't be able to stem the panic once it's out there." 

"We're all going to regret this," Finstock says, but they all let the subject drop, taking Stiles's dad's word on it.

Stiles creeps back down the hall to his room, mind racing with what he just heard. 

Something's after the dragons. A Nightfury saved him yesterday and now something could be after it. He has to do something. He grabs his coat and creeps back down the hallway with an unlit torch. His dad and the other adults are still talking in the living room. Stiles lights his torch from the light at the front door, right before ducking out.

It's not until Stiles is in the once again dark, once again cold woods that he realizes the flaw in his plan. If something's hunting dragons, it's going to have no problems crushing him like a bug. And then the woods aren't just cold and dark, but also terrifying. And Stiles has no idea how he's even going to find the Nighfury or what he plans to do if he does. His first thought was to tell the Nightfury about the dangers. But dragons can't talk, so that's not going to do anything.

Stiles has just about talked himself into turning around and going home when he catches something moving out of the corner of his eye. He turns, and the Nightfury from last night has settled next to him.

"Hey you," Stiles says.

The dragon tilts its head at him. It looks questioning, but Stiles knows he's projecting.

"I came to warn you about the danger in the woods, but that's silly," Stiles says anyway. 

"I'm actually kind of impressed I found you at all. Or well, you found me, I guess," Stiles shrugs. "Does that mean you like me?" Stiles asks. "Maybe you'll let me get closer?" Stiles says taking a step sideways towards the dragon. The Nightfury stays where he is. Stiles picks a hand up, slowly telegraphing his intention to get closer. But that's as close as the Nightfury wants him, or at least that's what Stiles gets from the bared teeth. "Okay, I'm just going to stay here," Stiles says putting his hand down. 

He looks around not sure what to do now that they're at a stalemate again. "Have you noticed anything in the woods?" Stiles asks, peering into the darkness beyond the trees. "Like, something hunting dragons? We want to help," Stiles says, speaking for his village. "I want to help," he says.

"What do you say we take a walk? See if we can find whatever's out there?"

The dragon, predictably, says nothing, but when Stiles starts walking the dragon falls into step next to him. They walk for a while, Stiles keeping up a one sided conversation about everything and nothing all at once. If the downside of the dragon having no idea what Stiles is saying is that he can't warn the Nightfury about the danger, the upside is that Stiles can talk as much as he wants without worrying that anyone, like Lydia, is going to make fun of him for the stupid shit he says. And since he's thinking about her, Stiles tells the dragon all about how once, when they were eight, he came to class one morning and told Lydia all about how they were going to get married and live together and it would be awesome and Lydia's never addressed him by name since. Although Stiles still hopes that Lydia will come around. She's pretty much perfect. 

If there is anything out there, Stiles' chatter is probably keeping it far away, which doesn't actually bother him too much (he enjoys not being something's dinner). Stiles tries to keep track of where they're going, but directions are never going to be his strong suit. He thinks the village is back that way, but he's not as worried about it as he would be if he were on his own. He's pretty sure the Nightfury knows where they are.

He's proven right not much later, when the Nightfury starts walking out ahead of him. The night has gotten colder and his lack of sleep catches up with him, shivering and yawning taking the place of his chatter. Stiles follows, through a few sharp turns in the path he would never have known to take, and before he knows it the lights of the village are blinking in the distance.

"Goodnight, I guess," Stiles says, when the Nightfury once again stops well within the tree-line to let Stiles make the remainder of the trip himself. "Thanks. I, um," he hesitates. "I'll come back," he finishes. "We'll do this again." 

Stiles wanted to promise that nothing bad is going to happen to this dragon, but even he realizes that's a ridiculous thing to say before it could leave his head. Stiles walks home, turning back to look as he goes. The dragon stays there until Stiles can't see anymore.

\---

The next day dragon class is canceled because Finstock is needed for a supply run. Or at least that's the bullshit excuse they gave. Stiles knows they're going out there to look for whatever's killing dragons.

Since Stiles has time, he goes to the library that's in the town's main building. He's been reading, and re-reading, about dragons forever, but always with an interest in the dragon that's going to be his. So he knows almost nothing about Nightfuries. Since there were no Nightfuries in town at that point, Stiles skipped over those books, in favor of reading about Deadly Nadders and Monstrous Nightmares and Mood-Dragons. But now he wants to know everything. He wants to know how fast Nightfuries can fly, how high, whether a human rider effects that, how hot their fire breath is, and where those teeth go when they retract. 

But he also wants to know specifically about the Nightfury brood that used to be in Beacon Hills. Which dragons were Derek's parents? How many dragons were in their family group? How many other siblings did Derek have? Where they from the same litter or did had his parents had lots of litters? Is there anyone else of his family have left out there? 

Someone's already there when he gets there. Someone red-headed and beautiful. "Hello Lydia," he says.

"What are _you_ doing here?"

"Getting a book," he tells her cheerfully.

"Good," she says. 

"What did you think I was doing?" Stiles asks.

"Following me," she says, with a flip of her hair. "And then I'd have to have Jackson torch your dragon-less ass."

"So, you've been thinking about my ass?"

"No, you- you ass," she says, frustrated with her insult choice.

"Besides, Jackson is going to pale in comparison to whatever dragon I get," Stiles says.

"No way," Lydia says. "You're going to get an inferior dragon, for an inferior rider."

"Is that a challenge?"

"It is. One race, no holds bared," Lydia says, eyes flashing, holding out her hand to shake on it.

"You're on," Stiles says, taking it and shaking on it.

"You're going down," Lydia says. "Now, get your book and get out of here."

"Fine," Stiles says, turning back to the shelves. They're both in the dragon section, and he's so familiar with the books here, it doesn't take long for him to find what they have on Nightfuries. Stiles takes all of them, one book on physiology, one on families and behavior, and then, because why not, he takes all of Finstock's filed notes from the last few years on the ones Beacon Hills has. Books gathered, he heads out, saying, "Goodbye, Lydia." She doesn't bother to respond.

\---

Stiles stays up late reading, hoping to overhear something about what his dad and the rest of them found while out in the woods. But Stiles is most of the way through reading about how the Nightfuries wings move in order to let them fly, where exactly the fire they breathe comes from (and how it's not actually breath at all) and how they heal super-quickly, before he hears his dad come in. When he hears the slow squeak of the door as his dad makes sure not to let it slam, Stiles realizes how late it is. His dad is making all the noises of someone trying not to be heard, and his dad probably expects him to be asleep. Stiles leans over to quickly blow out the candle next to his bed, and pulls the covers up, the book still in bed with him. He hears his dad pause outside his door, and he shuts his eyes, in case his dad opens the door. But a moment later, the creeping, gentle footsteps continue down to his dad's room. He can't re-light the light without getting up which would make noise. So Stiles closes his eyes and goes to sleep.

\---

It's a few days before Stiles can get back to the woods. The preparations for winter that Stiles overheard his dad talking about have kicked into full gear. Now that they're old enough to really help in the preparations, most of the schooling for his age group has been put on hold until the winter. The only thing they still have is dragon class, but Stiles is beginning to realize he's not going to find his dragon in this class of hatchlings.

Stiles helps his dad fix a barn with the other men on the north side of the village that week. That weekend Stiles ducks out late in the afternoon while his dad is meeting with the council members to have another uneventful walk in the forest with the Nightfury. 

The next week, Melissa takes him, Danny, and Allison out to the valley to stock up on healing herbs before the ground freezes over. And when Stiles gets home from that, it's to learn that a downed tree took out part of the town wall. Stiles sneaks out into the woods a couple of times at night, but then one day he's so out of it he nearly brings down a huge piece of the wall on his head, and decides he can't risk it until he's working on less perilous tasks.

He and the Nightfury never see anything suspicious on their walks. Stiles would feel a lot more comfortable about it if his dad wasn't suddenly spending half his afternoons "preparing the forest border for winter." Stiles stays up later and later reading up on Nightfuries, hoping he'll overhear an update. He gets through the physiology book, and zips through the one on behavior. The town records are proving harder, all shorthand and initials he needs to puzzle out: 'L on lead today: took to it easily, D more skittish,' and 'D first fire,' and 'class: L with NH, D with KA.'

Stiles knows it’s hoping for too much to stumble over another secret council meeting, but he;s good at eavesdropping. He thinks he should have heard something by now. But they haven't said anything anywhere Stiles can overhear. Stiles doesn't know if that's good or bad. His dad's started having this tired, pinched look sometimes. Until recently, Stiles has thought that the council of elders was made up of, well, elders, the towns oldest and greyest, that being what gets you a seat. But with the way Stiles's dad's looking recently, maybe it's the other way around, that being on the council makes you old. Stiles pretty much always feels bad about the trouble he finds himself in (not that it stops him from getting in it). But lately he's been feeling even worse. His dad has enough to worry about with the safety of the whole town on his shoulders that Stiles really shouldn't be adding to it. But, if it were something serious, they would have told the rest of the elders, right? And if they had told the council, Stiles would have heard about it. That they haven't makes him think maybe there's nothing to worry about after all. But the expeditions don't stop, so Stiles doesn't know what to think. 

\---

When they're finally done fixing the town wall, Stiles takes the first opportunity that presents itself to slip away to the woods. It's not a surprise this time when the Nightfury drops into place next to him. Stiles just says, "Hello," and falls into step as the Nightfury starts walking. Stiles leaves the directions up to the dragon; he provides the conversation. Tonight, he's in the middle of once again telling his Nightfury friend about Lydia being not only the prettiest girl in their whole village, but also the smartest, and he knows that's totally going to be the key to her heart, when the Nightfury freezes. 

Stiles stops, looking around. "What?" The Nightfury drops its head, blue eyes narrowed into slits glaring at where Stiles is standing. Stiles holds his torch down to look at the ground. He's standing in some type of puddle, and he crouches to get better light on it. It's sticky and faintly reddish. "Oh my god," he says, jumping back and out of the puddle, "that's blood."

The Nightfury doesn't look up at Stiles's exclamation, but now that he's out of the way, the dragon comes closer, nose practically in the blood. The Nightfury edges right past Stiles, coming the closest to him it's ever been, to follow the trail off the path and into the trees. "Hey, wait for me," Stiles calls after the dragon. Stiles doesn't really want to go into the trees after whatever caused the bleeding. Or after whatever is bleeding, if he's being honest with himself. But staying here by himself seems like an even worse option. So he follows.

The Nightfury keeps its nose to the ground, zig-zagging between the trees from one pool of blood to another, following where something staggered around bleeding in the forest. The trail gets more and more spaced out, and their zigging and zagging become because the Nightfury has lost the trail and is doubling back. Stiles suspects that whatever they're following took to the sky rather than that it stopped bleeding. 

The trail goes completely cold when they reach the base of the mountain, incline kicking up and ground going from soil to rocky boulders. For all the trees loom threateningly, casting shadows that can be hiding anything being suddenly out in the open air makes Stiles feel exposed. 

The Nightfury is clearly agitated at having lost the trail, flying back and forth in the dragon equivalent of pacing, and the dragon's worry makes Stiles even more uncomfortable. Stiles had felt protected with the Nightfury by his side, like he was impervious to more than getting lost as long as they were together. But with every gust of wing-swooping wind he realizes just how wrong he was. The Nightfury was swift and strong and amazing on land, but its name comes from the power it has in the air and it's just dawned on Stiles that he doesn't need a mysterious, unknown enemy to be terrified right now, he has a deadly, wild dragon right in front of him, and no matter how nice it's seemed so far Stiles has read enough to know the danger right in front of him.

"It's going to be okay," Stiles says, hoping that saying it out loud will make it true. He's talking to himself for once, but his voice reminds the Nightfury that he's there, and the Nightfury lands in front of him.

"It's going to be okay," Stiles repeats, because it looks like the Nightfury could use hearing it. "We'll just-- I don't know," Stiles says. "But we'll be okay if we stick together. There's two of us. That's got to be better than one. And you're a giant scary dragon, so, you know. And I can, um, I've got opposable thumbs but, um, no weapons so maybe that isn't as useful as it could be. I guess we're really counting on you to keep us safe, big guy." Now that Stiles has started talking, he can't seem to stop the nervous babble. 

The dragon's returned to the air to pace back and forth through the sky. Stiles sits down, leaning back on his hands to watch the Nightfury. "You really are amazing up there," he says. "I totally have faith in your ability to the be muscle in this duo." 

"I guess I've got the brains covered. And the mouth. You just continue being the strong, silent type, emphasis on the strong."

Stiles shivers. He had kept warm chasing after the Nightfury in the woods, but now that he's stationary he's realizing how cold it is. He lost track of time in the chase, and he wonders how late it is now. The cold from the rock he's sitting on is seeping into him from underneath. He gets up. "Okay, no more sitting."

"Do you want to head, I don't know, somewhere?" Stiles asks up to the Nightfury.

The Nightfury, drawn by Stiles standing up, lands in front of him, tilting its head questioningly.

"Or we can stand here."

The Nighfury starts walking back toward the woods. Stiles follows. He follows all the way until he realizes that they're heading back towards the village. He's gotten better at recognizing when he's almost home and usually that's good news. But not tonight. "Oh, no. I'm not leaving you." Stiles stops following. The Nightfury takes a few mores steps before realizing that Stiles isn't with him anymore. It backtracks to him. "There's something out there," he says. "We're sticking together."

If everything weren't so terrifying, it would almost be funny to watch the Nightfury try to figure out how to move him. It steps closer, then back. Then, it walks around him to try and convince him to move by stepping closer from behind. When Stiles stays put, the Nightfury bares its teeth. Stiles remembers when this would have terrified him, but threats are only scary if you believe that they'll be followed through on, and Stiles knows the dragon won't.

The dragon steps back, and Stiles thinks it's re-evaluating. 

The Nightfury leaps right over him and walks away. Stiles isn't falling for this. He's staying exactly where he is. Except the dragon doesn't come back. "Hey, wait, where'd you go?" Stiles says, taking off after the Nightfury.

Stiles follows the Nightwing, who totally got the better of Stiles with this move. "Fine, you win this one," Stiles says rushing to catch up.

The dragon stops at their usual splitting spot and so does Stiles. "What part of 'together' are you missing?" Stiles ask.

The dragon waves its head in the direction of the village. Stiles crosses his arms. "Nuh, uh." The dragon seems stumped, confused as to why Stiles isn't leaving as usual. So it takes another step towards the village, and another. Stiles is kind of interested to see how far the Nightfury will take this. 

The answer, is all the way out of the trees, although if Stiles were going to be scared of the Nightfury anymore, the expression on the dragon's face as it slinks out of the tree line would do it. Stiles is tempted to wait here to see what the dragon's next move would be. And he's still not really comfortable with leaving the dragon alone tonight with who-knows-what out there attacking. But if he was afraid of the open air when there could have been a monster lurking, he's equally afraid of being out with the dragon where his dad could see. He would be so dead if his dad found out he's been running off to the woods at night. 

Stiles looks back and forth between the dragon and the town. "Fine, you win," Stiles says. "But know I'm still not happy about it." 

"Watch out for yourself, okay? Be okay," Stiles says, taking a reluctant step, and then another, before finally walking back home.

"Stiles, is that you?" his dad says as he opens the door to their house which squeaks unfortunately loudly in the quiet of the night.

"Oh, Dad, sorry," Stiles says, coming in and closing the door softly behind him.

His dad comes out of his bedroom, hand scrubbing through his hair. "What were you doing out?" he says, sounding more awake by the moment.

"I couldn't sleep so I just went for a walk."

"Where'd you go?" his dad asks.

Stiles looks down, shoulders hunched. Then he looks back up at his dad. "Just down to the barn." He knows he's not a good liar, but if there's ever a time to pull it off, this is it.

"Stiles," his dad says, challengingly.

"What?" Stiles says. He's not folding.

His dad deflates. "Just. Don't do that again. It's dangerous out there."

"By the barn?" Stiles asks, because he doesn't know how to quit while he's ahead.

His dad just shakes his head and turns around to go back into his room.

"Come on, Dad. I'm not stupid, you know. I know something's happening," Stiles challenges. If his dad would just tell him things, he could help. He wants to help. Even before he befriended the dragon, he wanted to solve the mystery. But now he can't even fathom something happening to the Nightfury. "I can help."

"I'm not doing this in the middle of the night, Stiles," his dad says. "But if you want to help, you can stop making me worry."

"I- fine," Stiles says. He's agreeing to letting it drop, and hopefully to not worrying his dad. He is not agreeing to dropping it, although he knows it's implied, and he feels bad about possibly misleading his dad about it. But his dad wasn't out there tonight. He doesn't know what's happening. He didn't see the Nightfury panicking. He doesn't know.

"Goodnight, Stiles," his dad says, leaving it at that and going back in his room.

"Night, dad," Stiles says, walking down to his room. Stiles didn't think he was going to be able to sleep with the night running through his head, all the way through the forest to the confrontation with his dad. But when his head hits the pillow the adrenaline crash kicks in and he falls asleep right away for a solid, dreamless night. The next thing he knows, his dad is shaking him awake.

\---

"Stiles, where's Greenberg?" Finstock barks at him. Stiles looks around, and realizes he's lost sight of him. Of course he would be paired up with the Chameleon dragon on the first class day where they take the dragons out of the barn complex down by the meadow. But Greenberg is definitely not here anymore.

"Don't worry, coach. I'll find him," Stiles says.

"You better," Finstock says threateningly.

"I'll help him," Allison says, Scott trotting along behind her like the besotted dragon fool he is. 

"Fine," Finstock shouts at them, already moving on to yell at Danny.

"Hey," Allison says, joining Stiles at the tree-line where there's the most potential for Greenberg to be hiding. 

"Hi," Stiles says. "I don't know where Greenberg could have gone." All Stiles sees in the tree-line are trees.

"That's why he's called a Chameleon dragon," Allison agrees mildly.

"Don't rub it in. I'm still not over you stealing Scott from me." Scott's trotting along obediently at Allison's heels as they crisscross through the trees. He's almost twice the size he was when Stiles worked with him. All the dragons have gotten bigger, growing from babies to adults. Before they know it, they'll be having their first flying lessons (except Stiles knows they're a week and four days away from flying because he harassed Finstock into giving him the syllabus for the course and subsequently memorized it). 

"You're not really upset about that, are you?" Allison asks, serious and sad, and Stiles realizes that maybe he's made that comment one too many times for her to still be taking it as a joke. "I didn't mean to. He's just my dragon," she sounds apologetic.

"No," Stiles says. "It's okay, I know he's not mine. I'm sorry if that joke went too far." Stiles is beginning to realize none of the dragons they're working with are his dragon. He feels more of a bond with the Nightfury than any of the ones in the stables, and the Nightfury's not his dragon either.

"Oh, great," Allison says letting out a sigh of release. Then, "is there something else bothering you? Something's been off with you lately."

"It's nothing," Stiles says quickly. If Stiles were going to confide in anyone, it would be Allison. When they were little, her aunt, Kate, disappeared one night, presumably falling victim to the dangerous landscape, freezing weather, wild predators, or some combination of all three, her body never found. He was a dumb kid, and didn't know what it was like to lose someone until his mom got sick the next winter. But Allison knew, and was there for him. If he could trust her with his grief, he can trust her with this.

"Stiles," Allison says his name like she knows he's lying and she's going to get him to answer no matter. Then she shouts, "Stiles! Greenberg is over here."

Stiles tramples through some undergrowth to get to where Allison is. And lo and behold, there's Greenberg noshing on some greenery on the forest floor, skin changed to match the same green dappled pattern as his snack. Stiles grabs the reigns, and pulls, but Greenberg doesn't seem inclined to move. At least holding on Stiles won't lose him again.

"Thanks," Stiles says to Allison. "I'm just going to wait for him to finish eating," Stiles gestures at Greenberg. "You don't have to wait for us. You can Scott can head back."

"We'll wait," she says, looking at him expectantly. Stiles is terrible with demanding looks. It's like lying. Those are just not his skills. He knows that. 

So he goes on the offense. "Have you noticed anything strange with your dad lately?" he asks. Stiles and Derek have had no luck finding anything else, no matter how much sleep he looses so they can wander the woods together.

"No," Allison says, but it's hesitant.

"Now who's lying?" Stiles asks.

"I mean, I don't know anything," Allison defends herself. "But he has been going out a lot at night, and then…" She trails off, like she's not sure if she should be continuing.

"Come on," Stiles prompts, tugging on Greenberg's lead. Greenberg still isn't done with his snack.

"The other day I heard him and Finstock arguing in the other room, and the door was closed."

"The other day when?" Stiles asks.

"Like, the other day," she says. "Why, what's up?"

"There's something in the forest hunting dragons," Stiles tells her. "I overheard my dad talking about it with Finstock, your dad, and Melissa."

"No," Allison says.

"Yes," Stiles says. "But that was a few weeks ago, and I haven't heard anything else."

"I hope they're okay," Allison says. Something about the way she says it makes it clear she's talking about the people, her dad and the rest that are investigating.

"I hope the dragons are okay," Stiles says.

"What are you two lolligagging about?" The shout from Finstock startles them and puts an end to the conversation.

"Nothing," Allison shouts back. "We'll be right there."

"The heck you will," Finstock says.

"Just, let me know if you hear anything else," Stiles asks Allison, a last plead under his breath.

Allison shoots him a look he can't decipher, running back to join the class with Scott right at her heels, leaving Stiles to pull on Greenberg's reigns while he stubbornly refuses to go anywhere. 

\---

Stiles goes back to forest that night. He knows it's ridiculous but he's been worried and distracted all day, letting Greenberg wander off, nearly overbalancing a stack of wood while stacking their winter firewood in the shed, forgetting it was his turn to help prep for dinner until his dad was shouting at him about it. He needs to know that whatever caused something to bleed all over the ground last night didn't get the Nightfury. That he wasn't duped into going home under false pretenses.

The Nightfury's refusal to show up so far tonight isn't helping his nerves. He's definitely been wandering around the woods long enough that normally it would have found him by now, dropping silently down next to him, scaring the bejeebus out of him.

All of which makes it all the more startling when he hears something walking clumsily through the trees. Stiles turns and holds out his torch, looking for the source of the noise, and there, to the right, is the Nightfury, clumsily walking in his direction, holding it's right wing out at an unnatural, still, angle.

"Oh my god," Stiles says, darting right off the path, clamoring through the underbrush, going right up to the Nightfury.

The Nightfury flinches back from his presence, and oh, right, distance, and how they keep it, and Stiles steps back, mind racing on what happened and what he can do and oh my god there really is something in the woods.

"I can't- I can't help if you won't let me closer," Stiles starts babbling, "and something happened to you because you made me go home last night and not that I would have been able to stop something that could get to you but I can totally help now if you would just, please." He stops. Stiles holds his hand up, clearly communicating his moves. "Please just trust me." Stiles takes a step closer, and then another. 

Stiles's hand connects with the Nightfury's wing. Up close Stiles can feel the scales that look seamless from a distance, the Nightfury'sskin warm and smooth to the touch. He's careful both of the injury and of the Nightwing itself, and he brings the torch closer to see. The Nightfury flinches at the light, but doesn't move away, and Stiles pets a reassuring hand down its side.

"Shh," Stiles calms the dragon. "It's going to be okay," he says as he finally gets a look at the injury. There are three deep, straight cuts in the webbing of the dragon's wing that are oozing unnaturally. "What the heck could have done that?" Stiles asks, thinking out loud. He doesn't like where the answer is going, because there's nothing jagged or natural or accidental about them. Those are the smooth deliberate cuts of a blade and as far as he knows, only a person could be using a blade. 

He's so angry that he left last night and he let the dragon get hurt. He's angry at whoever out there could have done this to the Nightfury, whatever horrible, heartless person could hurt this majestic animal.

The cuts are not healing like they should be. The Nightfury has enhanced healing ability. The book said that almost any flesh wound should heal in a matter of hours. Assuming this happened last night even cuts this deep should be scabbing over. Stiles has only ever heard of this one plant who's flowers can stop blood from clotting and it doesn't grow anywhere near the village. When Melissa needed it for a remedy, it took an envoy from their village, going with their dragons, five days to retrieve it. This is another sign that foul play is involved. So, so foul that Stiles wants to take retribution, rage shaking its way through his limbs and there's nothing he can do beyond kneel here and say stupid, comforting words.

But there is something Stiles can do. He went with Melissa to gather healing herbs. He knows where they are and how to apply them. It was a good portion of a day's walk to the valley where they grew. "Can you fly, buddy?" Stiles asks, but he knows the answer before he says anything. The Nightfury is barely walking smoothly and Stiles has never ridden a dragon before, so there's no way Stiles is going to risk falling out of the sky on this one. 

"Okay, we'll walk." Stiles pauses, looks around to figure out where they are and where they need to go. "Let's get moving, I need to be back before sunrise."

He takes off in the direction of the mountains, the Nightfury for once being the one to follow. It's an odd night in lots of ways. Stiles stays quiet, not up for talking when he needs to concentrate on making sure they're going in the right direction, keeping his torch out and his eyes down so he doesn't trip over anything on the forest floor while they move as fast as possible to get there and back before anyone notices he's gone. Plus, he knows that when he's not feeling well the last thing he wants is another person yammering on. The dragon's doing an admirable job, following along with its injury, not falling behind or making any move of complaint as Stiles leads them between too-close trees that jostle his wing. Stiles can at least be considerate of him.

It's a long trip, and Stiles is glad for the shock of cold air against his exertion-warmed skin, which keeps him awake as they ascend the side of Mount Beacon. The sole act of walking isn't doing it anymore. The steady slap of their feet on rocks is a repetitive lull that Stiles could fall asleep to as well as he could to any leaping sheep. It's the type of dark and late where every rock and every tree looks the same as all the others. They could die out here and it would be all Stiles's fault.

It's a relief when they reach the river. From here, they follow the river back downhill to where it empties out into the lake in the valley.

Stiles doesn't know how long they follow the river for. Now that he doesn't need to concentrate on navigating, he lets his mind go to the monotonous beat of their walking, saving whatever energy he has left for finding the flower and taking care of the Nightfury.

Down and down they go, the ground going from hard mountain rock, to mossy, hardscrabble plants, to lush vegetation around them. Of course it's when the ground goes soft and easy that he steps down wrong on a patch of pebbly rocks and his feet go flying out from under him.

Tumbling down, Stiles lands flat on his back, wind knocked out of him. Shit, that hurt. Stiles' eyes are closed and he keeps them that way, concentrating on his body, going through piece by piece, making sure that none of the hurt from the fall is anything more than that. But he's okay. More humiliated than anything, which is par for the course for him.

Stiles takes one last breath, before opening his eyes again, looking right into bright blue ones. "Oh my god you're close," Stiles says, scrabbling backwards, so the dragon's face isn't right in his.

The Nightfury just blinks at him. 

"I'm glad you finally like me and all, but let's keep your face away from my face." Stiles pushes himself up so he's standing. His torch went out when he fell. But either his eyes have adjusted to the darkness or sunrise is imminent because he can see better than he should be able to. He looks around. "Hey, we're here."

Stiles takes off to where the trees meet the river, looking for the little purple flowers he knows grow in the underbrush. The Nightfury settles in the open field, wing held out from its body, looking worse for the wear. Stiles can't tell from a distance, but he suspects that the dragon's still oozing blood. The offside of dragon's having enhanced healing abilities is that they don't have a lot of spare blood to lose. After all this, this has to work. 

It's getting lighter out, his earlier guess of sunrise proving right, but it's still too dark to see clearly in the shadow of the trees, and there's an early morning haze making everything fuzzy to his overtired eyes, despite the adrenaline knocked into him from his fall. 

Stiles gets down on his knees to see the ground better, pawing through the shrubs and there just out of reach, there they are. He scoots forward, mud and dirt and cold water seeping even further into his pants, but he can reach the plant. He pulls the whole thing up, not wasting movement to pluck the flowers now.

He knows that they're usually used in a poultice. He's got flowers and lake water, and that will have to make do. Carefully, Stiles takes off his coat, shivering. Even with the sun rising, it's cold in the exposed air. He folds his coat up so that the inside stays fully wrapped up and covered as he lays the coat on the ground near the dragon. Stiles cups his hands, dips them in the freezing lake to gather water, one, two, three times until he has a nice little cup of water precariously settled into the folds of his coat. Now, Stiles picks the petals of the flowers off of the stems, letting them fall into the water. Without fire, the torch isn't doing anything by way of being a light, but Stiles works the handle like a pestle, crushing the flowers into the water, working up a lumpy, uneven, runny paste.

"Here goes nothing," Stiles says, once again cupping his hands to gather the mixture he's made. "Sorry if this hurts," he says, slowly approaching the Nightfury.

The Nightfury holds unnaturally, carefully still, eyes squeezed shut, as Stiles presses the petal mixture into the cuts as gently as he can. "That's good. You're doing good," Stiles says softly, trying to be as calming as he can as he works. Stiles has just enough to cover the three slashes, scraping as much of the flower paste off his coat as he can as he finishes with a, "There, all done."

Stiles takes one more trip to the lake to let the cold water wash his hands clean, before he retrieves his jacket and shrugs it back on. The patch where the poultice was has muddy-purple marks and a generally wet splotch, but the inside is thankfully still dry. Feeling cold is relative; Stiles was cold while walking all night in his jacket, but compared to not wearing the coat, it's nice and warm now that he's bundled up again. 

Stiles sits down next to the dragon, leaning carefully against its good side. "I'm just gonna sit for a few minutes, okay?" he lets the dragon know. He can see the dragon's tag from this angle and he reads what's written there. "Derek, huh?" Stiles says leaning into the Nighfury's good side. Derek must be 'D' in the notes. He's noticed that whoever's in charge of naming the dragons in the stables doesn't repeat letters, probably so that he can use the initials. Now that he knows which one is his dragon, he's going to go back and re-check the notes he's already read to see if there's anything he missed. "As soon as you're feeling better, we'll head back." He really wants to get back now, but sitting here is nice too after the night's adventure. "You're nice and warm, you know?" He only closes his eyes for a minute. But it really is warm and surprisingly comfortable against Derek, and Stiles is so tired after being up hiking all night.

The next thing Stiles knows he's flailing awake, being hit with something wet and squishy. He looks down and there's a fish in his lap. Gross.

"Um," Stiles says, looking around to get his bearing. The sun's definitely rising now, which doesn't bode well for getting home before someone notices he's gone. On the other hand, Derek seems to have made a full recovery during his nap, swooping over the lake in great arcs, diving at the surface of the water, only to pull up with a fish in his jaws. That answers where the fish came from. Derek spreads his wings to full-span banking out of a turn and landing next to Stiles and swallowing his fish in one bite.

Derek looks at Stiles expectantly. It was a nice thought bringing him food, but he prefers his fish a little more cooked. "Go ahead, you can have this one too," Stiles says pushing the fish over towards the dragon.

Derek breathes out a blast of blue fire, and holy cow that's fire way too close to Stiles, and he's scrambling way but it's already done. 

Stiles knows that came from Derek, but Derek doesn't seem to have moved at all, head still tilted curiously at Stiles. Except now the gifted fish is nice and charred.

Stiles moves gingerly over the scorched ground to the fish. He reaches out to touch, pulling back abruptly. "Hot," Stiles says, shaking his hand out in pain. Slower, more careful this time he gingerly pulls back the blackened skin. Inside, the flesh of the fish is white and flakey. The breaks off a chunk and puts it in his mouth.

"Thanks, Derek, this is great." Stiles devours the fish.

Once done, he looks around. It's really nice here by the lake and now that he knows he's going to get in trouble for being gone, he's in no rush to get back. Derek is flying again. And after calling him the Nightfury or the dragon for so long, it's kind of weird that Derek's name is Derek. And that he used to be one of the Beacon Hills' dragons. As far as Stiles knew, all of the Beacon Hills Nightfuries died in the fire. And if that's what Stiles thought, that's what everyone thinks, because Stiles is an ace eavesdropper. But apparently at least one of them survived and has been living in the forest all these years. 

"Hey, come on down," Stiles shouts up at Derek. "I want to check you out before I head back."

Derek lands next to Stiles, although that probably has more to do with Stiles getting up and waving his arms around at the sky than at anything he said. With Derek landed, Stiles takes a look at Derek's formerly injured wing. There are three lines there where there used to be gashes, the new skin shiny and raised and just a slightly pinker color. "Those look better," Stiles says, eyes performing a full inventory of Derek's wing. If he weren't looking so closely he never would have noticed the other marks. "What are those?" Stiles gets on his knees, hand out against Derek's wing to steady himself as he leans closer. This isn't the first time Derek's been injured. There are old, faint marks, crisscrossing scars and little pocked burn marks blending in with the dapples of his scaly skin. That lends to his theory that Derek escaped the fire, except something doesn't fit right 

"What happened to you?" Stiles says under his breath. The plot just keeps thickening. Or that's what would be happening if this were a book and not Stiles's life, jeez. Nothing was supposed to come of Stiles's walk in the woods. Nothing ever comes of Stiles's ridiculous ideas except embarrassment and ostracism. Except now he's befriended a presumed-dead Nightfury who lives in the forest where someone's hunting dragons. "No wonder you don't like people," Stiles says, shaking his head. "How could someone do something like this?" Stiles backs up, belatedly feeling guilty for being in Derek's space, for presuming he can just look and touch like that.

"I guess it's time for me to head back," Stiles says, looking away, back to the woods where his hike awaits him.

Derek doesn't get up. 

"So, um, goodbye, I guess," Stiles says, hesitating. "I'll see you sometime after I've gotten some sleep."

Derek sprawls down on the ground, making himself lie as flat as possible. This isn't the first time Stiles has seen a dragon do that.

"You've got to be kidding me," he says, looking at Derek. Derek wants him to get on. Derek wants to fly with him, without reins or a saddle. Stiles doesn't know if Derek has ever had a rider before. Stiles has never ridden before. This is a terrible idea.

Stiles climbs on.

It takes him a moment to get situated, making sure he's sitting at the right place to not interfere with Derek's wings, that he can hold on around Derek's neck, which is as good as it's getting without any of the proper equipment.

"Here goes nothing." Stiles squeezes his legs tight around Derek's shoulders, squeezes his eyes shut so that in the event of plummeting to his death he doesn't have to watch. He feels the shift of muscles in Derek's back and wings under him as they take off. It's disconcerting and terrifying, but it works. Stiles is still on Derek's back, wind whipping around him, rocking forward and back with the beating of Derek's wings, but he's not going anywhere.

Stiles opens his eyes and the terror becomes exhilaration. The dark endless forrest they trudged through all night are rushing past beneath them, static green trees transformed into a waving ocean at this speed. The sky is a blue vista above it all, open, and so much closer than Stiles has ever seen it, and he was so right about dragons. This is the best thing ever.

The trip is over too soon, the smoke from the cooking fires rising into the air draw Stiles attention to Beacon Hills, before they get there, the buildings so far off they look like they couldn't even house ants, let alone Stiles's whole village. He's cold from the wind and his hands are frozen and cramped from gripping on, but he doesn't want to get off.

Derek stops just inside the tree line, regardless of Stiles's silent wishes and Stiles slides off. It's unnerving to be back on the ground after flying. His legs are sore from being unused to the way he needed to hold himself to fly, and between the dead weight of his legs and the contrast of cutting through the air on Derek's back, ground feels particularly unyielding under his feet.

"Thanks," Stiles says, patting Derek's side. "We have to do that again as soon as possible." Stiles looks apprehensively at the village. "But probably not tonight. I am going to be so dead when I get back. Also, sleep. I should really get on that. But definitely flying again."

Stiles pauses. "Take care of yourself," he says, throwing his arms around Derek's neck, hugging him. There are some things that you can't go through without forming a bond with who you went through them with. Stiles thinks this night was one of those things. Maybe, eventually, he'll be paired up with a dragon from the village (although he's already trying to figure out how he can bring Derek home, make Derek his dragon), but whatever happens, he saved Derek's life tonight and tonight Derek was the first dragon he ever rode.

\---

"Stiles."

And there it is. His dad, and the end of his life. They're still serving breakfast in the town mess, and Stiles hoped this was his chance to sneak in unnoticed. But his dad must have been waiting for him outside, because from seemingly nowhere he materializes in front of Stiles.

"Yes?" Stiles says.

"Where have you been?" his dad asks.

"I took a walk." Stiles is afraid that sounds too much like a question, even though it is absolutely, definitely not. That is totally what Stiles did, for various definitions of the word 'walk.' There was walking involved. Lots of it.

His dad is not buying it. "You went out before I woke up?"

"I told you, I can't sleep." At least there's a precedent for that. Stiles isn't sure he should be glad that his lies are building upon one another. He doesn't particularly like lying to his dad. 

"And have been gone for hours." His dad sounds worried and frustrated and Stiles wishes he could go back in time and not eavesdrop on the elder's meeting. But at this point he's not sure how to start telling the truth. 

Derek is more important than telling the truth. "I got lost," Stiles says instead.

"And what happened to your coat?" his dad asks, eyebrows raised incredulously.

"I fell?" That one definitely sounded like a question.

"Maybe if you were getting some more sleep, you'd be able to stay on your feet," his dad says.

"Yes," Stiles agrees, "definitely, more sleep, got it." He just wants this to be over. He wants to go inside, get some more breakfast, and put this conversation with his dad behind them. He moves to do just that, step to the side to walk around his dad.

His dad mirrors his step, still blocking Stiles's entrance. "Where do you think you're going?"

"To get breakfast?" Stiles tries.

"I'm a little worried, you might not be able to eat and go for a walk," his dad says. "I think I want to keep an eye on you." That doesn't sound good.

"So we'll have breakfast at home?" Stiles says.

"Oh, no. I'm on my way out to check on the fences at the far field, and you're coming with me."

Stiles doesn't have anything to say for that. 

"Come on, I've already got lunch packed." His dad takes off in the direction of the fields, and Stiles falls into place behind him. There's nothing he can say. Today is going to suck.

\---

Stiles sleeps like the dead that night. He's out the second his head hits the pillow and his dad needs to shake him awake the next morning, saying, "That's the type of sleep I like to see."

Sleeping a million hours helped tremendously. After walking around the previous day like a zombie, Stiles wakes up ready to go. A good night of sleep has returned him to his normal, fidgety self.

The day passes fairly typically: breakfast, and a morning helping his dad with winterizing chores. 

He's become a lunch recluse, using the time to go through the logbooks from when Derek was in the town. Now that he knows Derek's name is Derek, he has a whole new way of looking at the records. They're written in shorthand, notes kept on record in case Finstock needed to reference them but not intended to be read as someone on the outside, so it's been slow going. 'D' was one of only two hatchlings to his parents year, the other an 'L.' They had three other Nightfury hatchlings that year that would have been his cousins. Stiles wants to go back and re-read the early notes now that he knows more about what he's reading, but for now he's going to keep going with the notes from dragon classes that year. 

_Wk 1: D w VG - grooming_

_Wk 2: D w AD - leads_

_Wk 3: D w KA- fieldwork_

Stiles can't help the way his brain rushes around trying to figure out who from town has those initials, but it's a lost cause before he starts. He has no idea how old most of the adults in town are, and who got dragons their first year. He can think of three people with the initials VG to start, and that doesn't even account for married names. Or nicknames. He really hopes Finstock's notes from this year are calling him 'Stiles.' His real name is not for public use (or private use, or any use).

So he forces his focus back to the notes.

That afternoon they have dragon classes. The only thing of note happened right at the start of dragon class. They were putting leads on their dragons to go out for the day, when Lydia says "Hey, you."

It's only his finely honed Lydia sense that lets Stiles know she's talking to him. She hasn't made any move toward him, and is still turned away from him, facing Jackson in the next stall.

Stiles has no such attachment to the dragon he's working with today, a Mood-Dragon named Shantal, who's docile enough but definitely not Stiles's dragon. So he hops up on the ledge so he can poke his head over the stall wall. "Yes?" he says. He doesn't even mind talking to the back of Lydia's head. She's perfect everywhere. This may even be better. He can watch her toss her long, fiery red hair as she works and she can't see him be a flustered mess brought about by her intimidating perfectness.

"Where were you yesterday?" Lydia asks. 

"With my dad," Stiles blurts out before thinking. Lydia noticed he was missing. Lydia cares. "Fixing the fences on the far south field for winter. You know how important that is."

"Whatever," Lydia says. "Allison was worried."

"Oh." That's disappointing. Lydia didn't notice that Stiles was gone, Allison did. Although this is still a step in the right direction. Stiles should thank Allison for talking about him with Lydia. And it caused Lydia to talk to him. And, okay, she didn't actually refer to him by name, but any day now, Stiles is sure that Lydia will.

"You ready?" Danny asks Lydia, passing by the front of Jackson's stall, jerking Stiles out of his Lydia watching haze. "Oh, hey Stiles," Danny says noticing him.

"Hey Danny," Stiles says.

Lydia shoots him a glare, and Stiles drops back down to Shantal in his stall. He should get ready, too. He hears Lydia on the other side of the wall tell Danny, "Ready to go."

\---

That night Stiles is going to check on Derek. Even though Derek seemed fine once the poultice healed his cuts, Stiles is worried about residual effects, especially if they let whatever got him the first time easier to get a second. Stiles knows he's a worrier, but recently it doesn't seem like excessive worry.

Stiles is going to be prepared if it is excessive. And by prepared, he means ready for more flying. When he slips out of his house, taking extra care so he doesn't wake his dad, he doesn't head directly for the woods. Instead he heads up the path towards the dragon stables. He skirts around the outside of the stables the dragons board in, slipping into the side door of the equipment room. The harnesses and saddles in here are custom made to fit the individual dragons in the stable. But Stiles figures one of them will be a close fit, and that a close fit's got to be better than nothing. He examines each one that's hanging on the wall, trying to figure which would be the best fit for Derek. He's between the one for a Deadly Nader and the one for a Basic Brown. The Basic Brown looks like it's going to be too big in the neck, but the one for the Nader has big shoulder pads that might interfere with Derek's wings. Eventually, Stiles figures that neither are going to be perfect, so he should just take one and go. He grabs the Basic Brown one, and slips back out the same door, and right into Allison.

"Haha," she says, "I knew you were up to something."

"No, I'm not," Stiles says. He's pretty much been caught in the act, but it never hurts to deny, deny, deny.

"Yes, you are," she says. "Are you going riding? You know that's dangerous. Which dragon are you taking out?" Allison rapid fires off. 

"I'm not taking any of the dragons out," Stiles says, the one thing he can without a lie.

"Then what do you need the saddle for?" she asks.

Stiles hesitates. He's backed into a corner by his lies, and doesn't see a way out. The best he could do is be silent, but that's never been Stiles's strong suit.

"Come on, Stiles. It's okay. You can tell me," she says softly.

And Stiles wonders if he can. In the flickering light of the torch she's carrying, he can see sadness reflected in her eyes and Stiles knows that she's had it hard, too. He thinks about her aunt, and the way they've taken turns leaning on each other. In storybooks, best friends are more to each other than he and Allison are. But she's the best he's got. Maybe the stories are just stories.

"I-" he starts. But then there's her grandfather. Stiles tried to be there for Allison the way she was for him. It was hard, though, because Stiles knew Gerard not just as a little kid who was terrified at the scary old man of the town, but as an almost adult who knew that Gerard was a crazy, militant old man who wanted to go back to the days before they had dragons in the village, back to the days when people still thought the best chance they had was to kill them all.

When Gerard got sick, Stiles felt bad for what Allison was going through. But maybe not well enough, because Allison pulled away from him. And when Gerard disappeared this spring, Allison stopped talking to him for a while, stopped talking to anyone as far as Stiles could tell. And if it came down to it, Stiles wonders if Allison would run away too, disappear when things get too bad, just like her aunt and her grandfather, a whole family of people who turn into the lone wolf, pulling away like the animals they have a legacy of hating at the exact time when they should be letting people help them. 

Or maybe that's just human nature. Stiles doesn't have a lot of friends, Lydia won't acknowledge him, Danny is indifferent, and he can't afford to lose Allison. So maybe he should take his own advice and turn to her, let her know what's going on.

"You have to promise you won't tell anyone," Stiles says.

"I won't," Allison says solemnly. "You know I won't."

"Our dads were right. There's something in the woods hunting dragons. I've been trying to find out what."

"Stiles," Allison hisses admonishingly. "The woods are dangerous."

"I've been fine," he waves off her concern. "Don't you want to know what I've found?"

"You found what it is?" Allison asks.

"No," Stiles says. "Even better. I've found the dragons it's hunting."

"Wild dragons?"

"No." Stiles pauses, and then says, "Well, maybe, but I haven't seen one yet. There's a Nightfury, one of the ones that used to live in the village must have escaped the fire."

"But I thought they were all dead," Allison says.

"So did I," Stiles says. "But they're not. You can come meet him."

Allison hesitates. Stiles can see her mentally weighing it. Her family has always been really strict, and Stiles imagines that hasn't made their friendship any easier. 

"Okay," Allison says, voice hardening in resolve, "but you have to tell me everything."

"Great," Stiles says. "Follow me."

Stiles leads Allison into the woods, telling her about how Derek saved him from a mountain lion, about how he found Derek with poisoned gashes from a knife, about how Derek flew him back, "And oh my god, flying is the most amazing thing ever, you don't even know."

Stiles isn't worried about the noise attracting a predator anymore, he's looking for Derek to find them, and even if he wanted to be quiet, the saddle and harness are unwieldy to carry, clunking around awkwardly in time to his steps. 

So he doesn't hear anything over the sounds they're making until Derek's jumping out at them, snarling with his teeth out and his eyes narrowed to challenging slits.

Allison jumps back behind Stiles, a shrieked, "Oh my god," escaping as she scrambles away.

Stiles takes a step forward, dropping the equipment he's carrying to put a hand up placatingly. "It's okay, Derek," he says steady and reassuring. "Allison is a friend. She won't hurt you."

Derek takes no notice of Stiles's soothing, craning his head to growl at Allison over Stiles's shoulder.

"Stiles, get away from him," Allison says, voice still shrill and panicked.

"It's okay, he won't hurt me," Stiles tells her.

"Stiles, get away now!"

"I'm fine," Stiles says. He is. Derek won't hurt him.

"Stiles," she says again and before Stiles knows it, Allison must rush forward, because she's pulling on his arm and Derek is darting toward to where she's touching him, and Stiles lets himself fall back at her insistence. Stiles shakes her off as soon as she stops pulling, apparently having decided they're a safe distance away.

"What did you do that for?" he yells at her.

"That dragon was going to kill you," she shouts back, gesturing up at the sky, where Derek is circling menacingly.

"No, he wasn't. I told you, we're friends."

"That's the problem with you," Allison says. "You can't just be friends with wild animals."

"Derek's not wild! I told you, he's from Beacon Hills." Allison's words hurt. He knows he doesn't have a lot of friends in town, too awkward and spastic and nerdy. But Derek is his friend. Derek is his dragon, and he's not giving that up, especially not for someone who only likes him better than everyone else does, but not enough without that comparison.

"It doesn't matter where he was born," Allison counters. "All dragons are wild animals. You have to be careful. Dad always says-"

Stiles cuts her off. "I know what your dad says and I'm really not interested in any more of your family's 'let the dragons die' bullshit."

"If you won't listen to me, then I'll tell your dad, see how he likes it."

"You wouldn't."

"Just try me," Allison snarls, turning around and stomping off. 

"Where are you going?" Stiles shouts at her. Allison doesn't stop. "Come back here."

"No," she shouts back at him.

And shit. This is not good. Stiles looks up at Derek. He just wanted to see how Derek was doing, but he looks fine up there, fierce and deadly and like he totally doesn't need Stiles, which seems to be the theme of the evening. But Stiles needs Derek, and that's not going to be okay if Allison runs off and tells their parents. So Stiles picks up the abandoned saddle and harness and chases after her.

"I swear Derek's never done anything to me," Stiles hisses at her when he catches up with her as they slip back into the village. He needs to convince her not to tell anyone, and quietly because if they're caught at this point it's as good as her telling. "Derek is totally safe. There's something else in the woods attacking dragon's that's the real threat."

"Stiles, I know you're upset that you didn't get a dragon this year, but you can't go galavanting around with wild animals. That's not okay," she whispers back, betraying that she doesn't want to be caught out at night any more than Stiles, despite her plan to go tell his dad exactly that.

"Come on," Stiles says. "He's just afraid of what's out there. He was weary around me at first too."

"So a dragon tried to kill you and you kept going back for more?" she says. "I'm doing this for your own good."

"Allison, please," he says, pulling her off the road to the houses, onto the path that leads to the stables so he can put away the stuff he's carrying. She follows. Stiles is not above begging.

"Do you think I'm willing to lose anyone else?" Allison says as they round the corner of the stables, where the side door is.

"What are you two doing out in the middle of the night?" Chris Argent steps out of the same shadows Allison hid in earlier. Stiles freezes, giving Allison's dad a chance to take in their appearance and add, "With a saddle? Were you going riding?"

Allison opens her mouth to respond, but Stiles gets there first. "Yes, I just couldn't wait."

"Allison?" her dad asks, looking at her. "You went along with this?"

"I just wanted to make sure that Stiles was safe. I couldn't let him go out alone," she says, going with the lie he started.

"So if I were to check, Scott would be dreaming his little dragon dreams in the stable, and not just coming back from a ride?" her dad says.

"I haven't seen him tonight, I swear," Allison says.

"I don't like how close you are with him," her dad continues, as if she hadn't spoken at all. "He's too big and dangerous for you. I should have listened to your mom and held you back until next year."

"Dad-" Allison starts.

"She's telling the truth, Mr. Argent," Stiles cuts in. For as jealous as he was at first, Scott is Allison's dragon and he doesn't want to mess that up. "This is all my fault. Allison hasn't done anything wrong, it's all me."

"Stiles, you should stop talking now, unless you want me to tell your dad about how you're corrupting my daughter?" her dad says.

"Don't worry," Stiles says. "He already knows how much of a screw-up I am." He makes sure to keep his voice light; sarcasm, not a good offense, his best defense. Although he's sure that his dad wouldn't be surprised that he's screwing up again.

"Stiles, go home," Allison's dad says. "I have to have a talk with Allison and her mom tonight."

"Thanks, sir," Stiles says, thinking maybe luck is finally going his way.

"Don't get excited; I'll talk to your father tomorrow," Mr. Argent says. 

Or maybe his luck is as crappy as always.

\---

Despite being out in the middle of the night, Stiles can't get to sleep that night, tossing and turning until the sun comes up and he gives up trying. He's probably getting himself in more trouble by sneaking out this morning, but he's pretty sure his dad's never going to let him leave his side after Allison's dad talks to him. This might be his last chance to go see Derek, so of course he's going to take it.

Now that it's light out, he can't sneak a saddle out of the barn, but he checks out their mud-room, gabbing a knife and a tarp before he leaves the house. It's different heading to the forest in the light. He's not sneaking, but instead walking with purpose. If anyone sees him, hopefully they'll assume he's headed exactly where he's meant to be.

He stops worrying about being caught once he disappears into the woods, trees hiding him from view. He doesn't walk far before he sees Derek soar overhead. But Derek doesn't land. Stiles assumes Derek didn't see him; it's not his usual midnight visit. So, Stiles walks in the direction Derek flied off in, towards the mountains. But after a few more passes, Stiles knows Derek's seen him. The last time Derek flew past, he swooped down right over Stiles. 

It's making Stiles nervous. Either Derek's still angry that Stiles brought Allison last night, or there's something even worse out there that Stiles is about to blunder into. He hopes it's not the latter. He hopes it's not the former either. Derek's up to something though.

Stiles reaches the base of the mountain, and Derek's still going back and forth. But now he can see one end of Derek's journey. It's a ledge, or maybe a cave, half way up a so steep it's practically vertical face of the mountain. Derek's not making this visit easy on him.

Stiles glares at the mountain resentfully before starting the really unpleasant climb. About halfway up, Derek makes another trip past and Stiles shouts, "This better be worth it!" at him. "This would be so much easier if you'd stop and give me a ride."

Stiles's shouting at Derek is about as effective as glaring at the mountain, that is, not at all. From this angle, Stiles can see that Derek's carrying something up to the ledge, some sort of flowering plant carried in his jaw on the way there that's gone on the way back. But Stiles needs all his mental acuity to not fall off the side of the mountain, all his focus on holding on. Thinking about what's up there won't matter once he gets there and can see for himself. So one hand above the other, Stiles climbs and climbs and climbs.

He finally pulls himself over the ledge, only to wish he hadn't. The Nightfury lying there is dead. Stiles doesn't need to get closer to tell. Its neck is broken at an unnatural angle, wings torn to tatters where they curl around the body. Stiles gags and barely stops himself from instinctually stepping away and over the edge of the mountain.

Derek was infinitely more Nightfuries than Stiles thought were left in their vicinity. But it looks like until recently Derek had a friend. Stiles isn't sure how to process that. He takes a step closer, away from the edge, torn. He wants to go examine the dragon; who was it, was it another one that lived through the fire or did Derek befriend a wild Nightfury, does it have a tag, a name? On the other hand, it seems disrespectful. Stiles has hunted and killed, although he's not particularly good at it. Normally, he knows better than to prescribe his human thoughts on animals. Even the other dragons in the village are different than Derek. This is Derek's friend. 

Derek is back, almost as if Stiles's thoughts summoned him, but Derek doesn't spare a moment to even notice Stiles. He lands right next to the dragon, depositing the flower he flew up here with on a growing pile of flowers that's curling around the dead dragon's tail and moving up its body. Flower deposited, Derek takes off again. 

Stiles sits down, not sure what to do. It looks like Derek's another person, dragon, whatever, in Stiles's life he can't help through their loss. Stiles loses himself, sitting there, the mound of flowers going blurry as he let's his eyes unfocus, lost in thought.

Stiles is pulled out of his trance when Derek returns, landing on the ledge. Stiles watches as Derek places another flower on the body. And there's something Stiles can do.

The descent down the mountain is no easier than the trip up, a treacherous climb down, that's only improved by the fact that from this end, Stiles can tie a rope one end around a boulder, the other around his waist, that will hopefully keep him plummeting to his death.

Once he makes it down to the ground, he takes off in the direction that Derek's been flying in. Derek's passes overhead have been quick enough that wherever the flowers are coming from shouldn't be too bad of a walk on flat ground. Stiles only isn't sure where to go at one turn, and he waits there until Derek's flying overhead again as a beacon to follow. It's not far from that point, until Stiles pushes through some dense underbrush and around a copse of trees to find a clearing of the purple flowers. Derek's there, seemingly waiting for him.

Stiles walks over and picks one of the flowers. Derek already has one in his mouth. This would go faster if Derek took more than one at a time, but when Stiles goes to take a second, Derek growls at him around the stem.

"Okay," Stiles says. "One at a time. I get it," he tells Derek. He turns to begin the trek back, and seemingly satisfied that Stiles was not going to take more than the one, Derek flies off behind him.

Stiles reaches the base of where the mountain goes vertical without much trouble, but the wind has picked up, and apparently blown his rope off somewhere, because it's not where he left it hanging. Stiles looks up, gaping the rock climbing ahead of him. He knows he's done it once already, but he's been trekking around the woods since then, not quite as morning fresh, his arms still feeling his last trip up. But he doesn't see another way up. And he's going to have to mirror Derek with the flower too, holding the stem of the flower in his mouth, needing both hands for the climb and not wanting to chance crushing it in his pocket. He can do this. Just keep putting hand over hand.

He's a little less than halfway up when he realizes that maybe he can't do this. He's standing precariously, holding on with all his might, breathing heavily, hoping that if he just gives himself a minute he'll get his breath under control. His arms feel shaky, and he doesn't know if he can pull himself up even one more handhold, let alone the rest of the way and if he falls he's dead and he is just a bundle of bad decisions.

There's a gust of that wind kicking up, and Stiles squeezes his eyes shut against the breeze, tightens his fingers for whatever good that will do. Except it's not wind. It's the gust from a dragon's wings, beating awkwardly to hover behind Stiles. "Derek," Stiles says, not sure what to do with this situation. Derek just moves closer, one wing scraping uncomfortably against the rock. There's no way Derek isn't offering a ride to Stiles. But that doesn't make it any less terrifying to loosen his death grip with one hand, reaching out so that hand is braced on Derek's shoulder. Stiles moves his leg next, one coming off the rock ledge his toes were wedged on, bending up to rest a knee on Derek's back. The trembling is as much from fear as muscle fatigue at this point as Stiles releases his other hand, falling onto Derek's back. He allows himself a moment for one, two, three, deep breaths but no more, before he scrambles up Derek's back to get himself situated for the ride, holding around Derek's neck. He didn't need to worry about Derek taking off before he's ready. Derek stays as still as he can until Stiles is secure, flying smoothly to the top once Stiles is ready.

Derek stops and lets Stiles off once they're at the top. Derek walks over first, puts the flower he's holding down, and Stiles follows suit. He watches Derek carefully, laying the flower down right next to Derek's, making sure to do it right. He looks at Derek once it's done to make sure it's okay, but Derek just steps back, giving Stiles his space. Stiles takes the opportunity to step sideways, moving closer to the dragon's head. If Derek doesn't want him to do something, he's sure Derek will let him know. But Stiles wants to know where this dragon came from and who it is. It's got a tag, just like Derek's, clearly another escapee from the fire. He steps closer so he can read it, and it's even more like Derek's than he thought. "Laura," he reads out loud. "L," he says, thinking of the notes he's been reading. "She was your sister."

Stiles doesn't know what to do with this information. He's not an angry person, or a violent one, but he's angry now. Whoever's doing this needs to pay. He wants to make them pay.

He turns away, back towards Derek, who's already looking back at him. Derek has the same pain in his eyes that Stiles saw when Derek's wing was injured, but this time it's an emotional pain. Stiles doesn't know if dragons hug, or even if they have some equivalent, but that doesn't stop him from hugging Derek, wrapping his arms around Derek's neck and just squeezing. Stiles doesn't know if Derek gets anything from it, but Derek lowers his head, letting it rest on Stiles's shoulder, and Stiles can only hope that Derek gets the support he's offering.

When Stiles lets go, Derek crouches down, and Stiles knows it's his cue to get on for a ride. Stiles climbs on. He'd be happy to bring flowers back and forth all day, if it would mean something to Derek, if it would help him at all.

So, Stiles is surprised when Derek lands and their usual drop off spot, just inside the woods near town. "Um," Stiles says uncertainly, climbing off of Derek.

"I guess I'm gonna just go home then now." Stiles looks towards the town. "It's probably lunch time, so I should be able to sneak in pretty easily," he says. "I'll- um- see you soon," he finishes, although he has no idea when he'll be able to come back. Home in sight, he remembers all of the trouble he's do for from last night's visit, which had been pushed out of his head when he saw Laura. He hesitates, not wanting to go back, now that he knows what's surely waiting for him: a whole morning where Mr. Argent could have been telling his dad anything. But there's no point in delaying the inevitable anymore, and he doesn't want to keep Derek, if he has more flowers to bring Laura. So with a sigh, he heads back to town.

\---

Stiles really needs to stop overestimating his ability to sneak back into town without getting caught. Because the first person he runs into slipping in to lunch is his dad.

"Have a nice morning?" he asks.

"Yeah," Stiles says, not sure what else to do. He certainly can't tell his dad the truth.

"I had an interesting conversation with Chris Argent this morning," his dad says.

There's a pause, and Stiles's dad is clearly waiting to see what Stiles will say in his defense, but Stiles, for once doesn't fall for the trap, waiting the silence out.

Stiles's dad sighs. "So I guess it's true."

Stiles still doesn't say anything.

"You somehow convinced Allison to go out riding with you in the middle of the night and you didn't think you'd get caught?"

"Is that a trick question?" Stiles ask.

"Stiles." His name has never carried more disappointment and frustration. 

It's nothing more than a reflex when Stiles says, "Sorry."

"Sorry's not okay anymore," his dad says. "I don't know what's happened, but you can't just do these things. Mr. Argent catching you is the least bad thing that could have happened to you out there. You've never flown before. You were out there with untrained dragons. You could have fallen off and plummeted to your death. There's a reason we have classes to teach you these things."

"Shouldn't you be happy I didn't instead of being mad at me?"

"No."

"Oh." Stiles is not getting out of this. He almost doesn't want to. His dad doesn't sound angry, he sounds disappointed. And that disappointment kills Stiles. 

"I'm mad at you because you're supposed to know better than that. I thought all those dragon books you read would have sunk in, but apparently not. You know, I'm almost glad it doesn't look like you'll be getting a dragon this year. You're not ready for it."

If his dad's disappointment kills Stiles, this leaves him absolutely gutted. There's a lump in his throat that he can't seem to swallow around, and his eyes are suspiciously wet. He can't keep Derek safe, he can't be who his dad wants him to be, Lydia won't even address him by name, Stiles can't do anything right. But he fights through the tightness in his chest, and it's completely sincere when he gives his dad a choked out, "Sorry."

"Come on," his dad says, taking Stiles's apology for what it is and ending the conversation for now. "Let's go get lunch."

"Okay," Stiles says. And he follows his dad meekly into the main hall for lunch.

Stiles's dad leads them to one of the smaller tables, and they eat in companionable silence. That morning's increasing wind plays out in an afternoon storm so heavy they can't work outside through it, so Stiles and his dad spend the afternoon at home. They set up in the main room around the fire. It's a familiar scene, Stiles with a book on his lap, his dad whittling away at a piece of wood. If there were any justice in the world, Stiles's mom would be working on her sewing in the other chair, but as it is, that chair stands empty.

The books Stiles has out are all of the Nightfury records. He has gone back through all the old logbooks and guides in the town notes looking for information on Nightfury's after he met Derek. But it's not adding up. 

_Day 84, D wings deep scratches -- caught on wire fence?_

_Day 102, D burn marks, rt side -- L's first flames?_

_Day 118, D sprained wing -- set wrong. Broke and re-set. Not strong enough for flight w rider?_

There's a ton of these little injuries, peppered throughout. A couple are nothing unusual. 'L' has her fair share of bumps and scrapes. Baby dragons are ungainly and curious too strong for their own good. But Derek's injuries increase over time. Again, it's nothing that would seem unusual if Stiles weren't looking for it. But he knows Derek. Derek is sleek and quiet and deadly. He doesn't go anywhere he doesn't want to be. Of the two of them, Stiles is the one who would get himself caught in a fence, not Derek. It's just not adding up.

Maybe there's something he's missing? Something about Derek's physiology? Maybe one of the other books would help. He gets up from the couch to go fetch them from the other room.

"Where are you going?" his dad asks before he can go anywhere.

"Just to get another book," Stiles says. "Don't worry. I promise not to get lost between here and the bookshelf."

"Fine, go ahead," his dad says. "But cut it with the snark or next time I'll follow you to the book shelf just to drive you crazy."

"And you wonder where I get it from?" Stiles grins back at his dad.

"Go."

So Stiles does. He likes everything so much better when he and his dad are getting along and joking around. He knows they haven't solved all their issues, or any, really, but like this -- cocooned in their little house, blanketed by the rain outside -- it's almost as if none of that matters.

Stiles returns the book he's done with to the shelf and pulls out the next one on the pile He's walking back to the living room when there's a knock on the door. "That's not me," Stiles calls out to his dad. "I'm still right here, but someone's knocking on the door. Should I get it?"

"Sure," his dad shouts back.

Stiles detours to the front door, pulling it open. Allison's dad is on the other side, dripping wet from the rain. What is he doing here? Stiles was kind of hoping not to see him again for a very long time. He knows Allison's dad's already told his dad all about last night, so what else can he be there for?

"Stiles," Mr. Argent says.

"Mr. Argent," Stiles says back, still standing in front of the door in shock.

"Are you going to let me in?" Mr. Argent asks, spurring Stiles into motion. He doesn't want to let Mr. Argent in, but he steps back, holding the door open for him.

"Stiles, who is it?" his dad calls from the other room.

"It's Mr. Argent," Stiles tells his dad, closing the door behind Mr. Argent. Mr. Argent, maybe in deference for how he's dripping all over their front hall, doesn't move any further into the house. Stiles's dad has gotten up and joined them in the hallway.

"Hi, Chris," Stiles's dad says to Mr. Argent. "What brings you here?"

"I have some new information about-" he trails off. It's barely a split-second glance, but Stiles is looking for it, so when Mr. Argent looks at him Stiles knows, knows it must be about the dragons. "Our problem with the forest," Mr. Argent finishes.

"Stiles," his dad says. "Why don't you go start that book you got?"

Mr. Argent glances down at the book in Stiles's hands. "Nightfurys. Interesting," he says.

"Yes," Stiles says, "they are." He doesn't know what Mr. Argent knows, but he's not going to cower for him.

"Well, it's good to see you at home. Enjoy the book," Mr. Argent says.

Stiles goes back to the living room, sits down on the couch, and opens the book. But he doesn't start reading. He just needs to look like he's reading so that his dad and Allison's dad will get on with it. Then he can go eavesdrop on their conversation. But they don't seem to be getting there anytime soon.

If their plan is to bore Stiles out of listening, they're doing a good job. Stiles couldn't care less about whether the roof in the east barn is going to hold up to this weather and seriously, if they're not going to get to the point he might as well get back to reading.

Stiles is pulled out of his book when he hears "-Nightfury's fault."

Stiles carefully puts the book down and creeps over to the doorway so he can listen better.

"Are you sure?" his dad asks.

"Yes," Allison's dad says. "It's definitely the dragons killing each other. Maybe it's a territory dispute. They can be territorial."

"How do you know?" Stiles's dad asks. 

"I followed one out to the mountain, where it was standing guard over its kill," Mr. Argent says. 

Stiles's dad nods, not knowing any better, and says, "Finstock's not going to take your word for it. He thinks you hate dragons." But Stiles knows Derek's been living undetected in the woods for years. There's no way Mr. Argent would have just found him after all this time. Derek is silent as a shadow and just as difficult to pin down. The only time he comes anywhere near the village is when he's with Stiles- and shit. Allison's dad knew they were up to something last night. He must have followed Stiles. The rope that disappeared. That wasn't the wind, that was Mr. Argent finding Derek and Laura. Stiles needs to do something.

"Well, I certainly don't like them when they become killing machines," Mr. Argent says, before pausing. Stiles dad looks worried. "I can show you."

"Okay," Stiles's dad says.

"Let's go."

"What? Now?"

"We're not doing anything else," Mr. Argent says. "The weather will be a good cover for us, make it easier for us to sneak up on a dragon."

"Let me just tell Stiles I'm headed out." 

Shit again. Stiles runs back to the couch and tries to look like he's been sitting there the whole time. If the look his dad gives him when he comes back into the room is anything to go by, he's not entirely successful, but his dad can't prove anything. He just says, "I have to go out with Chris."

"Dad, can I talk to you?" Stiles says, panicked. He can't let his dad go out there. He can't let Mr. Argent feed his dad lies.

"When I get back, we can talk all you want."

"Please," Stiles says. He lets himself sound as desperate as he is. "This is important."

"When I get back," his dad says. "I promise. Until then, you are going to stay right here on this couch and not get up for any reason. I'm not kidding. If you go out, you will be grounded. Forever."

"Grounded forever, got it," Stiles says. He's impressed with his ever improving ability to sound like he's agreeing to follow the rules, while not actually agreeing to anything. He's not proud of it, but impressed, yes.

His dad gives him a look, like he's trying to work out the loophole to what he's said, but Stiles just grins at him placidly.

"We might be out late, I'll have Allison bring you dinner if we're not back."

"But if I can't get up off the couch, how will I answer the door when she gets here?"

"You ready?" Mr. Argent asks his dad, sticking his head in from the doorway.

His dad sighs. "See you later."

"Make sure to take your gun," Mr. Argent tells his dad. And when his dad heads back to grab his coat and supplies from the mud room, Mr. Argent smiles at Stiles. He has an evil smile. "Bye, Stiles." 

\---

Stiles gets up as soon as the door is closed behind them. They're going to find Derek and pin all the deaths on him. He can't let that happen. If Allison's dad convinces everyone that Derek's a killer, they're going to kill him. Even if by some odd chance he doesn't, Stiles is sure that Mr. Argent can kill Derek and make it look like an accident, or self defense. There's no way this can end well. And they're going to stop looking for whoever the real killer is. And Stiles is the only one how knows the truth. Or enough of it to do something.

He puts on his boots and coat in the mud-room. He wants to load his pockets up with supplies, but his dad got first dibs, taking the knife, tarp, first aid kit, and Stiles lost the rope that morning. His wits will have to be supplies enough. He pulls the hood of his coat up over his head for protection against the still beating rain. In this weather, there's no need to be particularly careful of who will see him; the town is dead quiet.

Stiles makes a beeline for the forest. The only thing he's got on his side is that it's a mutual looking for one another, and Stiles heads for their meeting spot immediately. Derek's not there, but that's okay. Stiles is going to find him. Stiles has to find him. With the pounding rain and the wing raising a symphony of whooshes through the trees, Stiles takes his chance with shouting.

"Derek!" Derek's hearing should be ten times what that of a human's is. "Derek!" Even with all the background noise, Derek should hear Stiles long before his dad and Mr. Argent do. "Derek!" And Derek knows him, should come when he calls. But Derek doesn't. Doesn't he know it's important?

Stiles thinks of where he last saw Derek. Derek's sister is important, too, and if that's where Derek is, Stiles can still find him first. So Stiles takes off for the mountains. He knows it freezing outside, but he can't feel it with his blood racing, system flooded with panicked adrenaline the only thing keeping him going. In the underbrush, the ground is a hazard of muddy patches where every step is a squelching battle to keep going, but the well-worn, man-made trails are worse, the hard packed dirt turning into a river-bed with water streaming over it, slick and slippery and trying to knock Stiles off his feet, so he sticks with the mud. It's more direct anyway, and he's less likely to run into his dad and Mr. Argent that way.

Whenever he has enough breath to shout he does, "Derek!" and "It's Stiles!" and, in one particular instance, "Come get me, you stupid dragon!" And then, "Sorry." But he's fighting against nature every step of the way, whipping tree branches stinging where they make contact with the open skin of his face and hands, flicking water in his eyes and he's finally feeling cold again in little icy rivulets that burn in contrast to the heat of his skin where they drip into his jacket. Stiles keeps running. 

The mud becomes rock as Stiles races up toward the mountains, feet slipping and sliding over the wet ground but staying under him through some fate of magic. He stops, to search the sky for any sign of Derek. "Derek!" he calls again. He can't see much of anything against the rain, but climbing up to Laura's last resting place in this weather is a recipe to make it his final resting place as well. The climb was bad enough in the with rope in dry breeze of the morning, there's no way he can get up there with no safety net, wet rock and gale force winds trying to take him down. Knowing this location is his last competitive advantage. After that he's no better than his dad and Mr. Argent; worse off, in fact, because they have all the supplies, and each other.

"Come on, Derek!" Stiles shouts, looking around desperately. He must be here somewhere. And, what was that? Something catches Stiles's attention out of the corner of his eye, makes him turn. He doesn't know what this blur of movement has over all the other rain-blurred shadows. But if he squints and focuses, he can see the wings on this blur, Derek's slick black body almost disappearing into the storm gray clouds behind him. Derek's swooping in and out of sight over another ledge, maybe a hundred yards to the right. Stiles isn't sure how he's going to get up there either, but now that he's spotted Derek he has to go investigate. Derek's motions are choppy, wings flapping hard against the wind, blowing him this way and that. Stiles doesn't know why he doesn't just land and sit out the storm like a good dragon. Unless, shit, maybe whatever's killing the dragons is up there. Stiles starts running. 

From a distance all the mountains look the same, but there's a much shallower incline, with a well worn path up to this ledge. Stiles thinks he's going to make it, his sore muscles and pounding heart and frozen skin, but he's going to make it. Then he steps down wrong on a patch of gravely rock. He feels like he falls in slow motion, his foot slipping out from under him as he leans forward, overcorrecting, and maybe but his next step is no steadier and he's on his back, breath punched out of him. It's not a feeling you get used to on repeated experiences. He's gasping for air, swallowing desperately around the rain water choking him, and he needs to get up. He's soaked and a mess and he's going to see this through to whatever miserable end it has. He closes his eyes against the stinging rain.

Suddenly, the rain's gone. Or, not gone, because he hears it pounding down around him, but blocked. Stiles opens his eyes and Derek is crouching over him. Derek is staring back down at him. Once Derek sees Stiles is okay, he moves over, lowering himself to the ground. It takes everything stiles has to throw his arm out and pull himself onto Derek's back. He doesn't have it in him to do much more than that. He can't wait for the day he gets to fly with a proper saddle and reigns, it's going to be heaven. Anything would be heaven compared to this, getting knocked about, holding on for dear life, hoping his grip on Derek's wet scales is enough to keep him from falling to his death.

It's not a long trip straight up to the top before Derek lands to let Stiles slide off his back. If Stiles's legs weren't already too shaky to keep him upright, the tableau in front of him would be enough to knock him over. There's a huge Terrible Terror dragon, laid out on the ground in a pool of blood, huge deep gashes oozing, enough that even the rain water hasn't washed it away. The Terrible Terror isn't dead yet, eye blinking painfully as two smaller Terrible Terrors nudge and push at its, fuck, her side, and it hits Stiles that the little ones are her kids and she's their mom and she's bleeding out and there's nothing that Stiles can do. The little ones are barely bigger than the Deaton's dog.

There's a squawk, and Stiles turns to see there's a third little one, chained up on the other side of the landing. It's struggling, frantic twitches of wings still too small to get any lift. Stiles struggles to his knees. If he can't walk, he'll crawl. He doesn't know what he's seeing but it makes him sick. How could anyone have the stomach to do this, to intentionally leaves these children motherless? It looks like they're too late to stop whatever monster is responsible, but Stiles is going to let the little one out. It's the least he can do.

But he's barely crawled forward two feet before Derek steps in front of him, nudging him back.

"Derek, let me help," Stiles says.

"Oh, isn't that cute," a voice says from behind Derek. "Derek trying to play hero, instead of the monster he is." The voice ends in a vicious snarl.

Stiles pulls himself to his feet behind Derek, stepping to the side so he can see around him. There's a woman there, tall, slim, with long dirty-brown hair, with a vaguely familiar tilt to her head. "From where I'm standing, it looks like you're the monster," Stiles says.

"Oh no," she says, calm as anything to Stiles, "they're the monsters," before she pivots and throws a knife at the little one. The knife slides right through the webbing in the little one's wing before lodging itself in the ground beneath him. Derek rears back, wings flapping in an oddly nervous gesture, shooting a burst of fire at her. The flames don't make it to her, turning into a cloud of steam in the suddenly easing-off rain, blanketing Derek and Stiles in a grey mist for a moment.

"You did always like your fire, Derek," the woman says as the steam clears.

"Who are you?" Stiles asks.

"Figure it out, Stiles," she says, tossing a knife up in the air. It flips over smoothly, and she catches it easily by the handle as it falls. "You're supposed to be a smart one."

Stiles is taken aback that she knows his name. Who is she? She knows him, so she must have been to the village before, or she knows someone there, but they don't get a lot of guests. Stiles would remember her. Unless she was there such a long time ago that Stiles can't remember. But if he were a little kid when she was there, how would she recognize him? He's grown a lot since then. She knows Derek, which is weird too. Derek nearly took off Allison's head. Derek is not a people-person, people-dragon, whatever. Although Allison ran off at the first sign of Derek being dangerous. Stiles already knows this woman would meet violence with violence, wouldn't even need the other person to bring it first. Unless she knows Derek from when he lived in Beacon Hills. He knows he could figure it out if he just stopped to think, but he doesn't have the luxury of time here, all of his thoughts racing, a twisted knot in his head that he's never going to unwind by pulling.

"Oh come on," the woman says again, still tossing the knife. The wind and rain have died down now, but the sky is still heavy with clouds, the knife a bright glint in the dark as it she plays with it. "This is an easy one. Derek and I go way back." 

Stiles is hypnotized by the knife. Toss, spin, catch. Toss, spin, catch. She knows what she's doing with it, no fear that it will land wrong. She's not afraid to use it, either, judging by the way the little ones wings are marked up with it, and then it hits Stiles all at once. "You're K.A." It makes sense. Derek's wings are covered in long-faded knife scars just like ones the little Terrible Terror is going to have if, no, when Stiles gets it out of here. She knows Derek from when she lived in the village. Derek was almost her dragon. And she was a crazy psychopath back then, too.

"K.A.?" she says. "Well, I guess I am, but most people just call me Kate."

"Kate?"

Stiles didn't say that. He spins around to where the voice is coming from. It's Allison's dad. He's by himself. "Where's my dad?" Stiles asks. They were going out together in a storm and now his dad's not here and what if something happened what is Mr. Argent doing here and how did he find them and where is Stiles's dad? The rain has stopped, and Stiles looks around Mr. Argent like his dad is about to walk up right behind him, but he's not there, and Mr. Argent is not answering his question. He's looking past Stiles at Serial Killer Kate, and Stiles wastes a nanosecond of brain power to be proud of that moniker, before repeating himself. "Where is my dad?"

Mr. Argent finally drags his eyes away from Kate to look at Stiles. "Don't worry. Your dad is on the landing with the dead one," Mr. Argent tells Stiles before looking back at Kate. "Kate? Is that really you?"

"Chris?" Kate asks.

If Kate's from town it makes sense that Mr. Argent knows her. But Chris? Kate? Stiles is lost, until suddenly he's not. "You're Kate Argent."

"But how? Why? We all thought you were dead," Mr. Argent says haltingly.

"The fire," Kate says. "They never would have forgiven me. I couldn't stay there."

"They ruled the fire an accident," Mr. Argent says. But Stiles knows that's only sort of true. The fire has always been thought of as suspicious. But 'accident' sounds a lot better than 'we're not smart enough to figure out what really happened.' It almost didn't matter, the loss of their entire flock of Nightfurys was devastating and who or what did it wasn't going to change that they were gone. Declaring it an accident let people move on from it. That was a bad year for the people of Beacon Hills. Stiles was too young to know what was going on at the time, but the same drought that let a fire rage through the stables like that also caused bad harvests, which left people hungry and ill prepared for the bad winter they had. Stiles's mom got sick that year. And of course, that's the year Kate Argent disappeared. At the time, it was like the town couldn't catch a break. Now, though, Stiles is learning that some of the tragedies may have been more interconnected than he or anyone realized.

"But it wasn't," Kate says, confirming what they both know.

"But how? Why?" Mr. Argent says. For once, he sounds just as confused as Stiles.

"Dad helped me run away," Kate says. She starts flipping the knife again. "And got me set up in the woods. He'd been teaching me the old ways, from before the town became reliant on _dragons_." She sneered at the word "dragons," disgust bleeding through loud and clear. "And whenever I needed anything he's sneak supplies out to me."

"But why?" Mr. Argent says. "You could have stayed. It- we- we would have figured something out."

"The dragons killed Peter," Kate says. Stiles is lost again.

But Mr. Argent isn't. "Before you were even born," he says, "before I was born, before there were even dragons in Beacon Hills."

"They killed Uncle Peter," Kate says.

"I know," Mr. Argent says, calmly, placating. Stiles doesn't remember Kate when she lived in Beacon Hills, just the tragedy of her disappearance, but Mr. Argent must remember her different from how she is now, because he's handling her with kid gloves when he says, "Years ago. It was an accident. Things are different now."

If anyone had told Stiles that he'd hear Allison's dad defending dragons and talking about how they're not going to kill anyone, he would have laughed his face off at how ridiculous they were being. That would never happen. Except it is. Stiles would laugh about it now, except he doesn't get the chance before Kate is screaming, "No they're not!"

"If you were just there!" she says. "But you weren't. You didn't hear his stories. You were off with your new wife and baby," she yells at him, real anger at having been abandoned bleeding through her crazy. "You didn't hear what Dad said!"

Allison's dad looks grief-stricken at that. "Kate," he says. "Dad's gone now. He was sick for a long time. Longer than any of us knew."

"No, he's not," Kate says, wheeling around, throwing the knife at the little Terrible Terror in rage.

Derek surges towards Kate, and before Stiles knows what's happening, Mr. Argent has let loose an arrow from the bow Stiles didn't notice slung over his shoulder, and it's embedded itself in Derek's site. Derek lists sideways from the impact, and turns, teeth out towards Mr. Argent. Stiles is only keeping Derek from going after Mr. Argent by physically being in the way. He's standing right in front of Derek, in the path of any potential flames, and he's got a hand on Derek's shoulder, which he has no illusions can physically hold Derek back. But Derek seems willing to stay where Stiles wants him for the moment. Mr. Argent still has his crossbow aimed at Derek, which is a little too close to having it aimed at Stiles's back while he's turned away for him to be comfortable, but it's more important that he keep Derek where he is right now. He just needs to trust that Mr. Argent won't shoot him, and that's never a thought he's had about Allison's dad before.

For a moment, they're frozen in this tableau, Stiles watching Derek, Mr. Argent watching Stiles, Kate watching Mr. Argent, and her knife, damn, how many does she have?, flip, flip, flipping. 

Then there's a thunderous flapping wings in the air and they all turn to look out at the forest, where two uncoordinated dragons are careening in their direction. Mr. Argent steadies his bow in that direction as the shapes grow closer. They can't see the riders from this angle, hidden from them behind the flapping dragons' wings. But Stiles knows there are riders, because Stiles recognizes the dragons. That's Scott and Jackson making their way ever closer.

"Whoa, Scott," Allison shrieks as Scott turn pulling even with the outcropping, suddenly coming into view of one another. "Dad, what are you doing?" she shouts.

"Allison, get down from there," her dad demands, shouting back at her. Scott lands on the mountain clearing, on the far side of Derek from Mr. Argent, and then Jackson, with Lydia and Danny riding together, on the far side of Scott. None of them dismount.

"What are you doing?" Allison says again from where she's sitting.

"Allison, get down right now!" someone that's not Allison's dad says.

In the rain earlier, Stiles didn't notice that the outcropping they're on is actually the entrance to a cave that goes into the mountain. But now all eyes are focused on it as a hunched figure emerges. Gerard Argent looks nothing like Stiles remembers him. Stiles has a child's memory of him as a towering, terrifying man with a booming voice. He still has the voice, but the rest of him no longer matches it. He's hunched over, leaning heavily on a walking stick, body frail and face gaunt.

"Dad?" Mr. Argent says.

"Chris, you're not hard enough on that girl. She's never going to turn out like my Katie if you let her gallivant with those children," Gerard says.

"What?"

"You think I wanted to die in that terrible town where everyone thinks I'm a crazy old man?" Gerard says. "No! I'm making myself immortal!"

"Dad, you don't know what you're saying."

"Of course he does," Kate answers for him. "We're taking down the dragons. The whole town has gone soft and pathetic. You're better off without them."

"Katie was always the better child," Gerard says. "She's a strong warrior woman. You're pathetic, riding those dragons, being part of that town, living your little safe life. You warn people that they need to be careful and take precautions in town meetings. Be a man! Stand up and do something. Your whining and simpering is pathetic. You're just like Peter. And where did that get him? Dead! Peter is dead!" Gerard looks around confused for a moment, brought somewhere else by his own words. "Where is Peter? Where is he?"

Stiles looks around at that. He's not expecting to see Gerard's long-dead ghost of a brother, and he doesn't. He also doesn't see Kate anywhere. "Guys, where's Kate?"

"Right here," she says. Stiles spins around to see that she's snuck around behind them while they were all distracted by Gerard. "Now, let go of Allison, you monster," she says as she plunges a knife into Scott's flank. Scott rears up kicking. 

Domesticated dragons aren't normally dangerous. But, Scott's a young dragon, his first time saddled up, first time with a rider, and he's injured and panicking. For a moment it looks like Allison's going to hold on, thrown about like a rag doll but still on him. Then Scott lands wrong and Allison is thrown to the ground hard. Stiles runs to Allison to make sure she's okay. Kate's going for Scott again, another knife already in her hand, and Stiles doesn't know where she keeps pulling them from, and doesn't have time to contemplate it. Derek's moved into action, getting between Kate and Scott, getting a gash in his side from her knife for his troubles. Jackson took off at the first sign of trouble, and Lydia's doing her best to keep him circling where they are, and not just flying off for as far away as he can get. 

Allison's breathing heavily, and Stiles guesses that everything hurts, but she's gasping that she's okay, that Stiles doesn't need to worry about her. Stiles doesn't think that's possible, he's a worrier, but she might not be wrong about who he needs to be worrying about. When he turns back to Kate and Derek it looks like Kate's gained the upper hand in their fight. He doesn't know why Derek doesn't just flame her. It's not like he particularly wants to see burnt-to-a-crisp human, but he knows that Derek can beat her. But instead, Derek's playing a dance of losing to her, moving in to swipe at her with his talons or to growl and snarl with his teeth before dancing away, not quite out of reach of her knives. Derek's wing has been cut straight through, a flap of skin blowing and dangling as he moves, and Stiles cringes as he images the pain Derek must be feeling. It's like Derek is one of the little Terrible Terrors -- helpless against Kate, at least in his head,. Stiles can't let this happen.

Stiles leaves Allison, and moves slowly towards where Derek and Kate are dueling. He doesn't want to draw attention to himself, or accidently get in the way of one of her knives. He's less able to heal than Derek. But there must be something he can do. He circles them, thinking, thinking, thinking. Their movements are even, planned. They're not going all out yet, each too scared of the other too be going full out on the offensive. Stiles thinks he can get her when she's dropped back. He only gets one chance, but he thinks he can knock her over, hold her down until someone figures out what to do next. It's not a long term solution, but he can't do nothing, so here goes nothing.

When Kate steps back from her latest parry, Stiles runs right at her, full tilt ahead, arms out, until they go crashing down right on the edge of the cliff. As Stiles scrambles not to go over he thinks he may not have thought this out properly. Stiles manages to pull himself back onto the ledge of the cliff, legs, arms and body firmly on solid ground and he lets out a breath he didn't even know he was holding, taking stock of the fact that he's once again managed to not kill himself. He looks around and realizes that Kate hasn't been as lucky. She's hanging on to the side of the cliff with just one hand on a rock ledge.

"Shit, shit, shit," Stiles says under his breath, crawling towards the edge to look over, trying not to focus on the ground, all the way below him. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to do that, oh my god," he says, babbling. "Here, let me help, grab my hand," he says, reaching his hand down toward Kate.

She looks up at him with a hard glint in her eyes and doesn't move. Stiles swallows nervously. He'd be mad as hell if someone accidentally almost threw him off the side of a mountain, and he probably wouldn't trust them to pull him up either. "No, really," he says. "I'm sorry. Let me help. Come on, I'll pull you up."

Kate grabs on with her free hand, and Stiles starts pulling. But she's not moving. "Come on, you can climb up now," he says.

"You're not on my side," Kate says, voice as vicious as her eyes. "You're with the dragons," and she pulls, not herself up, but Stiles down, and he's not prepared for it at all, sliding right off the ledge, flailing and banging hard into the side of the mountain. He feels where the rock scrapes up his side and face, where he'd be bruised for weeks if he weren't facing his imminent death. The pain is sharp but he keeps his grip on Kate, who's still got one hand gripping the lip of the mountain. But their combined weight and the force of him falling are too much, and her hand slips. 

They're falling now, and there's no point in holding on to Kate if they're both plummeting, so he lets go. It's just him now, falling. The air rushes by like when he first rode Derek, exhilarating, and he wishes he got a chance to do that again for real, with a saddle and reigns, beating Lydia and Jackson in a race around town, and Lydia would be so impressed with him she's call him 'Stiles,' instead of just 'hey you.' At least Lydia and Danny and Allison are here to tell his dad what really happened. Although after all this, maybe Allison's dad would tell the truth, too. He's certainly had the shock of a lifetime, and maybe he's not as bad as Stiles thought, just misled by all the crazy people in his life. He wants them all to tell his dad how great Derek is, that he's not responsible for any murders, that they should be kind to him because he's lost so much. And Stiles sees Derek now, flying above him, wing in tatters, and Stiles wishes Derek would go away. He's lost enough people. He shouldn't have to see anymore. Stiles closes his eyes against that thought, as though if he can't see Derek then Derek can't see him.

When Stiles hits the ground it's with a painful thud, and it takes him a moment to realize the ground is softer than he expected it to be. Maybe that's what happens in death, the ground is soft, and the air is still rushing by, and it's warm beneath him and bright above him, as though the clouds have finally parted to bathe him in the late afternoon sun. 

He doesn't open his eyes until the ground stops moving, and when he does, he realizes that he's back at the top of the cliff. Lydia has gotten Jackson to land again, and she and Danny are dismounting. Allison is sitting up, leaning against Scott's front leg, his head curled around her shoulder so she can pet his snout. He sees Allison's dad behind them, holding a wailing Gerard. And it's not the ground under Stiles, it's Derek.

It hurts when he rolls over and slides off Derek to stand up, but he can do it, which is amazing in itself. "I guess I'm not dead," Stiles says to himself.

Danny, who's closest to Stiles, hears and says, "I guess not," before pulling Stiles into a quick hug. Stiles can't help the wince, and Danny pulls back quickly. "Sorry."

"No," Stiles says. Danny shouldn't apologize. "It's good to be alive." Then, "I'm gonna go unchain the little one." He gestures to the smallest Terrible Terror, still tied up where Kate left him.

"Okay," Danny says, as Stiles limps towards the Terrible Terror. 

Stiles is still a few feet out when the Terrible Terror lets out a snort of fire. Stiles steps out of the way easily, but between one step and another Derek's leaning over his shoulder teeth bared in a growl at the Terrible Terror. "Calm down," Stiles says, turning to face Derek, "I'm okay."

"Let me try," Danny says, and Stiles just nods at him, still trying to get Derek to back off the injured baby and calm down. Whatever the baby Terrible Terror's problem with Stiles was, it has no problem with Danny. Danny barely has the chain unlooped from the boulder before the little Terrible Terror uses how it's still looped around its neck to pull Danny over to the other two. They jump at his legs, knocking him down, all in over-enthusiasm, no malice at all. Down anyway, Danny settles himself sitting cross-legged, and the littlest one crawls right into his lap. "I guess they like me," he says, smiling.

"I guess so," Stiles says, finally giving in to Derek's attempts to get him to sit down against Derek's side, now that he knows the others are okay. And maybe Allison's on to something, because Derek sits down, curled behind Stiles so that Stiles can lean against him and as Stiles carefully strokes the unmarked skin on Derek's side, he feels himself unwind for the first time in what feels like hours, days. Since this whole thing started. And he thinks that everything might be okay after all.

\---

It takes them a long time to get back to Beacon Hills. Injuries precipitate Derek and Scott walking rather than flying, Stiles and Allison limping along behind them respectively. Mr. Argent takes the responsibility of cajoling Gerard, who swings in and out of moments of lucidity, one minute not wanting to go with them because he doesn't know who they are or where there going, the next realizing exactly who they are and shouting obscenities at them for daring to have dragons in his presence. Danny's walking with the three baby Terrible Terrors. The two uninjured ones, who Danny is calling Boyd and Erica, can and do fly, buzzing around his head, but they're still too small to carry anyone. The third injured one, who Danny has named Isaac, is huddling close to his heels. Jackson is fine, but Lydia's walking him with them too, presumably out of concern for Allison or Danny.

When they do eventually get back, Stiles isn't even sure where to go. Allison's dad is herding Gerard back to their house, and Allison is taking Scott back to the stables. Stiles is sure there'd be an empty stall he could hypothetically board Derek in, if Derek would let him, but Derek seems reluctant to let Stiles out of his immediate vicinity. And Stiles doesn't particularly want to leave Derek, either. So he's stopped at an impasse on the main road of town as one by one everyone drags themselves back home. 

Lydia comes up from the rear, pausing with Jackson as she passes him. "Hey," she says, "I'm glad you're okay." Stiles should say 'thanks,' and let her go on her way, conversation complete but there's something awkward and unfinished about her silence, so he stays quiet, until, after an awkwardly long pause, she finishes with "Stiles."

He thought it would feel better to hear her address him by name, like a choir of angels singing, but it just sounds tired and numb, like the rest of the day has been. Maybe Stiles has been expecting too much from her. She came to save him with Allison and Danny. Allison and Danny are his friends. Maybe Lydia can be, too. "Thanks," he says finally.

Lydia nods, and starts walking again, taking Jackson back to the stables.

It's once she's gone that he notices his dad staring at him from the end of the road. His dad's unguarded face is stunned shock, until he notices Stiles is looking at him. Then he closes up and starts walking toward Stiles. Stiles takes one step, and then another, and then he's walking towards his dad, too. They meet in the middle of the road, and Stiles can't read the expression on his dad's face at all. 

"Where were you? I was with Chris, and then he left and he didn't come back, so I came home but you were gone," his dad says in a rush. "What happened

"I'm okay, Dad," Stiles says. "I promise I'm okay." Because he is. Everything was okay in the end. He's a little battered, but he'll heal. Derek's okay, and Kate's gone, and it's all okay.

"Geeze, Stiles," his dad says. "Just-" and then his dad seems to notice the dragon at his shoulder and freezes.

"This is Derek," Stiles says quickly, trying to cut his dad's freak-out off before it happens. "He's one of the Nightfurys from the town that didn't die in the fire. He's been living in the forest," Stiles barely pauses for a breath before barreling on, "I don't know what Mr. Argent told you, but he didn't kill anyone, I promise, in fact, he saved me, he saved my life."

"Stiles," his dad says in Stiles's pause.

"He's my dragon," Stiles finishes awkwardly. 

But there's no awkward on his dad's side, just his dad throwing his arms around Stiles in an all-consuming hug. Stiles's arms come up to hold his dad too. "What happened?" his dad asks again, still keeping Stiles in his hug, unwilling to let go.

"It's kind of a long story," Stiles says into his dad's shoulder, voice barely keeping bay of the hysterical laughter, which is barely keeping him from losing it all.

"It's okay," his dad says. "Let's all go home, you can tell me there." And when Stiles agrees, his dad finally says "let's go," leading all three of them home.

\---

"Still think you can beat me?" Lydia asks pulling up next Stiles and Derek to the make-shift starting line. 

"Derek can beat Jackson any day," Stiles retorts. He and Lydia's trash talking has reached epic proportions in the past weeks, but they haven't been able to put their talking to the test, with all the hulubuloo of finding Derek, and Kate being alive and then dead, and Danny taking in the three new dragons, plus all the already delayed preparations for winter. But they're ready now, just in time for what might be the last warm snap before winter really sets in. So chores have been put asside in favor of enjoying the day. Even the adults are taking it easy.

"It's not just the dragon, but the rider matters too."

"Are you implying that you're a better rider than I am?"

"No implications needed, Stiles," Lydia says. "Jackson and I are going to smoke you."

"Are you two done talking?" Allison shouts, from where she and Scott are hovering overhead to watch the race.

"Yeah, I thought we were going to see some flying!" Danny says, "Or are you just going to talk each other to death?"

"We're ready," Stiles shouts back. He turns away from Lydia, hunching down over Derek's back, preparing for takeoff. He feels Derek's muscles, shift and tense, ready to leap into the air. 

Stiles is all focus as Danny counts them off, "on your mark, get set, go!"

Derek springs up under him, lifting Stiles into the sky. Allison and Danny's cheering get lost behind him, Lydia and Jackson off to the side, although he's not worried about them. Up here, it's just him, the sun, and the wind, and Derek, and it couldn't be more perfect.


End file.
